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GENERAL PERCY DANIELS, 



AUTHOR OF 






A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN." 



"A hurry of hoofs in the village street, 
"A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark 
"And beneath from the pebbles in passing, a spark 
btruck out by a stepd flying fearless and fleet- 
That was all! And yet through the gleam and the light, 
i he tate of a nation was ridine that night." 

Longfellow. 



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CUTTING THe 

GORDIftN KNOT, 



BY 



GENERAL PERCY DANIELS, 

AUTHOR OP 
"A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMEN." 



Awaken, ye toilers ! Arouse from your dreams ! 
Put your ballots together to stop the huge streams 
Of booty that flows to the coffers of wealth, 
From the pockets of labor by channels of stealth. 
Unceasingly flows in flood or in drouth 
To plunder the toilers of the North and the South, 
That is the warning, the hour is here, 
When the startling message of Paul Revere, 
With its cry of defiance, its notes in the night, 
Will call forth the patriot hosts for the fight ; 

Will awaken the slave 

To fetter the knave, 
Now lord of a Nation he used to fear. 



,.it 



Entered according to Act, of Congress in the year 1896, by 

— = PERCY DANIELS,=- 

[n the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



V 



PITTSBURG KANSAN PRINT. 

1896 



10 
J/2 



ERRATA. 

(Cutting the Goudian Knot.) 



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IV 
VII 
VII 
19 


Sir 


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belonged 

discard 

and 

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belong 
discarding 
end 
the #100 


30 


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the roads 


the two roads 


30 
45 


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21 


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enable 


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43 




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of bold 


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and the brave 


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PRepftce. 



Cutting the Gordian Knot is a blending- 
of two proposed articles each of which is ab- 
breviated, and they are united for lack of 
time, that they may reach, during the coming 
campaign, those who may have to chose this 
year between Democracy and Despotism. 

The arguments in support of A Graduated 
Property Tax as a defensive measure against 
the advance of imperialism, are the conclud- 
ing arguments in the series which I began as 
a Republican in 1888. 

The discussion of the political situation in 
Kansas and of some events in our recent 
history, is a warning torpedo placed on the 
Populist track by a friendly hand. 

The hosts of Plutocracy are already in the 
field. Their three branches of service are all 
actively at work on their respective lines of 
Intimidation, Deception and Purchase. 

The People's party columns are in motion 
to meet them. Forward! is the word sent 
along the line. Forward! for the rescue of 
the Republic. FORWARD! as promised at 
Omaha; that we '"would never cease to move 
Forward till every wrong is righted.'' 

Politics is a form of warfare. Its rational 
armament is the sword of the ballot. The 
art of war teaches how to take advantage both 
of natural formations and an enemy's errors; 
how to discern and reach, and when to occupy 



([ 



stragetic positions; and how to hold or push, 
to concentrate or scatter the various parts of 
an army, so they may best support each other, 
or confuse an enemy. 

The history of the great struggles of races 
and states, is a history of blunders of one 
side or the other, and often of both, that have 
changed the destiny of nations. Their varied 
experiences illustrate the folly of ignoring 
strategy. They illustrate too, the folly of 
ignoring the lessons of blunders made, and 
disaster earned. Nor should the lessons from 
such blunders be confined to the written 
history of the past. They may be studied and 
profitably studied from the text book of contem- 
poraneous experiences. 

Cutting the Gorolian Knot is written and is- 
sued at this time partly to aid in locating the 
shoals and snags among which our Populist 
navy is maneuvering, that it may keep in the 
channel; and to show the danger to a cause 
from granting too much power to a party 
ring: but more especially as a sequel to iK The 
Sunfloioer Tangle" to develop the strong 
points in the measure it advanced and de- 
fended, through which the over burdened 
toilers may be relieved of the necessity of 
supporting an ornamental squad of idle aris- 
tocrats in luxury, and keeping an army of 
5,000,000 tramps and paupers in rags and 
want; — a measure by which these useless ex- 
tremes of society may be reclaimed and re- 
stored to the fold of industrious, useful, and 
contented citizens. The propriety and ne- 
cessity of discussing some Populist errors for 
the first two purposes stated above, may be 
partly seen in the extracts from two of a 
large pile of letters on these questions, ap- 
pended hereto. 



1] i 



The imperative demand for the enactmenl 
of some measures for accomplishing that 
which the bill endorsed by the People's 
Party Legislature and state officers of Kan- 
sas in L893, would accomplish if made law, is 
too well known, and the need too urgent, to 
require any consideration in the preface. 

The argument itself makes plain, 

Why we must break the bondsman's chain 

And set the farmer free again. 

It will also then reveal 

How we may raise the tyrants heel, 

And write for him "Thou Shalt not Steal" 

PERCY DANIELS. 
Narragansett Farm, June 18th, 1896. 



Joliet, III., Jan. 8th, 1896. 
Gen. Pi rey Daniel*, 

Girard, Kansas. 

Dear Sir: — 

******* 

I have just read your pamphlet, '■'■Free Coinage of 
American Labor" with much interest. I feel called 
to urge you in the name of the anxious Populists of 
the land to put in a pamphlet more fully and ex- 
plicitly the real reasons for the backset received by 
our party in Kansas in 1S94. I ask you as the most 
reliable authority I know of, to tell the people Wie- 
the leading Populist state did not keep at the head 
of the advancing column. Kansas used to be the 
pride of the Republican party as the state most 
most noted for patriotism, enlightenment and educa- 
tion when it gave that party 80,000 majority. When 
it turned Populist the Republicans cried it down as 
the abode of ignorant hay-seeds and long haired 
cranks. 

******* 

It is evident that the hard times— Cleveland— Sher- 
man "object lesson"— was too much for the integ- 
rity of some of our office holders and seekers in 
Kansas— leading them to imitate the "practical 
politics" of the old parties. 

Now please tell us the worst and the best. Give 
us some hope if you can, that as far as Kansas is 
concerned, this is not becoming a nation of thieve.s 
and liars as some assert. * * * 
Very truly yours, 

Samuel Leavttt. 



IV 



•Girard, Kas., Jan. 27th, 1896. 
Hon. Samuel Leavitt, 

Joliet, III. 

My Dear Sir:— Your letter of the 8th is received. 
It is full of good sense and hard questions. I realize 
the detriment which the result of the Kansas election 
of 1894 was to the reform movement in other states, 
on account of some of the causes that contributed to 
that result; but as is always the case, the farther the 
charges and stories get from home, the bigger and 
more mischievous they become. Those who belonged 
to the party for the hope they have that its work 
will be to promote good government, are forced to 
concede that the record of the PopuJist administra- 
tion was not above reproach, but they now see that 
its faults and delinquencies have already been over- 
shadowed by those of our successors who have not 
the inexperience or the difficulties to contend with 
that hampered the Populists. 

Those who have worked with the party for the 
good they expect and demand it shall do for them, 
have followed the practices they learned in the old 
parties, covering up as far as possible methods and 
acts that deserve condemnation, and trusting to 
denials, and labeling them political yarns, to break 
their force. While the latter class are relatively 
small, they are slick — good mixers — good dodgers— 
and always reaching for something, if it is only 
standing room from which to reach for something- 
else, and they live at the front and can thrive on the 
noise they make when unable to do better. 

The Populists have a share of this class and in the 
rapid gathering of their forces it was impossible to 
know them at once. Some of these still occupy con- 
spicuous seats in party councils, and their work and 
methods— the following well known and disreputable 
party tactics, and the ease with which they have 
been able to have questions of party policy settled 
by their standard, so shook the faith of the rank and 
file in the righteousness of the purpose of those who 
direct party movements, and for the time at least, 
control its destiny, that interest ebbed, enthusiasm 
languished, and the battle of '94 was lost. 

Other influences had some effect in bringing 
disaster, like the woman suffrage question and a 
third ticket; but not enough to restore the Republi- 
cans to power without the failure of the Populists to 
abandon and condemn the disreputable methods of 
the old parties, and to denounce instead of screening- 
some serious irregularities among their officials. 

As you probably remember, I did nothing either 
for or against a renomination, caring more to see 
the Populist position strengthened, and its efforts 
centered against the main stronghold of the 
enemy's position, and the main cause of present un- 
rest, than who should be chosen to carry its banners; 
but I was retired not on that account, but because of 
the use made by some of the slick twisters of what I 
-aid in "The Sunflower Tangle," by which I was 



made to appear as attempting to dictate the plat- 
form. Some wanted to use my name for first place 
on the ticket, but I refused to permit that as it 
would not have been fair treatment of Governor 
Lewelling as well as for other reasons. 

All of my efforts in politics have been in behalf of 
measures I have thought essential to good govern- 
ment, good order, and the welfare of the classes on 
whose prosperity and content is the only sure or 
proper foundation for our insitutions; and I oc- 
casionally get as earnest in support of them as the 
wire pullers who are the mastodons of political manip- 
ulation and the pigmies of statesmanship do in fix- 
ing up their slates and setting them on a hill, o" in 
pushing their intrigues. What I have done and 
said has been entirely without reference to the in- 
fluence it might have on individual success before a 
convention. Measures, not men has been my policy, 
and so I have not been m touch with tbose whose ef- 
forts were expended in behalf of the individual es- 
pecially 

Party manipulation in behalf of individuals, is one 
of the baneful habits of political leaders, and instead 
of being in touch with, I have won the displeasure 
of some of the strongest manipulators in our party, 
because, not having any instructions to report to 
them for orders, I have failed to recognize their 
whims as party law, or their whips as its executive. 

April 19th, '96. 

Well Mend Leavitt, I laid this letter aside twelve 
weeks ago, was taken sick a day or two after, and 
did not read or write for ten days, and this like 
other correspondence got laid in a pile "awaiting at- 
tention," and one thing and another — a multitude of 
calls on my time — has kept me from completing it 
as soon as I would have done, had I known just what 
to saj'. 

I have thought much over the questions raised by 
your letter, and I have also received many othei s 
discussing the disorder in Populist ranks I have 
watched too with increasing interest and expecta- 
tion the greater disorder and turmoil in the enemy's 
lines What will do most to increase the uproar 
among the enemy and restore confidence and har- 
mony among Populists, is a difficult question to 
answer. The state (Republican) administration, and 
the National (Democratic) are doing more for this 
than are the Populists. There are too many of our 
friends willing to approve a trimming and truckling 
policy, and to give free rein to expediency. The 
growth of this practice in all parties weakens my 
faith in Republican institutions 

You urge me to make a statement in pamphlet, 
giving the worst and the best features of the Populist 
administration here. The worst features were not 
near as bad as our enemies made out or as our dis- 
tant friends believe; nor were the best features as 
good as we or our friends wished. We have not done 
all we should have done with the opportunities we 



VI 



have had, but for what was accomplished under 
trying and perplexing conditions, the Populist party 
are entitled to the gratitude of the whole people. 
Both the experiences of the two years control, and 
the defeat which followed will enable them another 
time to do better than they did before, or than they 
could have done without the clarifying and invigor- 
ating disaster. 

A better understanding too of the circumstances 
and perplexities surrounding us, and a realization 
that every trival misstep was the basis of sensa- 
tional critici-m by hostile reporters seeking notoriety 
and sore-beaded Republicans seeking revenge, has 
developed a more considerate feeling in ascribing 
some of the errois to treacherous scouts or a fallible 
judgment, rather than a corrupt intent or a vicious 
purpose. If we can now subdue and civilize the 
wire pullers, we will be in a position to again draw 
reinforcements from the Lana-aeUr. 

No one of our administration could fairly become 
a critic of its work as a whole; but the relation of 
personal experience in some cases might allay an 
unreasonable distrust and relieve the party of unjust 
censure. For one thing they deserve more of cen 
sure than they have ret eived. That is in letting a 
supposed party interest decide too many issues. A 
state officer in his official capacity should be in- 
fluenced but very little by the siren's song of party 
interest. This is a weak excuse for screening jug- 
glery; and when jugglery is covered up on that plea, 
it uncovers the tact that the party needs clarifying. 

The Populist party has been censured for what 
should have been put on individuals where it belongs, 
as the party had an opportunity to do through a 
• investigating committee, I appointed the 
first week ot the session of 1895; but on the last day 
of the session.* by a little sly work on the part of the 
Republicans and the R. R. lobby, they indue ed enough 
of our men t > a d in defeating the investigation by. 
accepting the report of a conference committee on 
the miscellaneous appropriation bill, with the item 
for expenses of the committee stricken out. It was 
a great mistake which the Republicans and the rail- 
road interest chuckle over, and our people now see 
and regret. 

There are records and documents to support an 
effort to relieve the party of some censure, by assist- 
ing individuals to shoulder their share of the respon- 
sibility; but there is a hostility among party officials, 
to anything that would indicate a lack of complete 
harmony, or of unanimous out ward commendation 
of all of our record. Our papers do not give the drift 
of feeling over these matters, or the facts about the 
situation in our lines; and in attempting to deceive 
the enemy, they also deceive some of our own side. 



'The new adminisl ration was iii power and the Senal 
Republican President. 



VII 



I concede that something should be done to quell 
the disorder in our lines. While it is worse in the 
Republican camps, and they could hardly do more 
for our cause than they are doing here in Kansas, yet 
we should not depend for success on their folly; but 
should re-establish confidence in the justice of our 
plans and the integrity of our purposes by hewing to 
the hue as demanded by the rank and file of the party. 
If we can do that, we would again win in spite of the 
vicious devices of a snarling and unscrupulous 
opposition. The only way I can see to re-establish 
the confidence necessary to success is by abandoning 
the methods and practices that have destroyed it; 
and discard the faithless leaders and recreant ser- 
vants who have attempted to graft the reprehensi- 
ble practices of the old parties on the new one Men 
who have left the old party to seek something better 
will not be satisfied or pacified with the assurance 
that the new party is no worse. 

Really, the People's party is, both in method and 
purpose, superior to the others; but it is not what it 
should be. There are too many who get into front 
seats who are always ready to resort to the dubious 
ways of the old parties, and to sell favors for votes 
and drown principle in pottage, for it to command 
the full confidence of a great body of the independ- 
ent voters, whose support it needs and should win. 
Leaders have failed to realize the integrity of pur- 
pose in the ranks, and as yet hardly see why, if the 
Republicans never lose a campaign by the activity 
of their moral natures, the populists should not 
have the same license. Such a course breeds dis- 
content among those who intend their banner of 
reform to be something more than a pretense; and 
this is the sentiment of a majority in the ranks 
The sentiment of this class which is the backbone of 
the party, must be respected, and their protest 
honored, and their purpose considered, if the party 
is to be held together to overthrow the forces of 
corruption and a monied despotism No one person 
can stop the tendency to fall into old party ways, 
but each of us who despise them can exert some in- 
fluence in that direction ; and no one person can 
undo the mischief caused by a failure to do as well 
as the party promised their agents should do, or be 
held to a strict accountability; but there are many 
who can each do a little toward it, and I may con- 
tribute something to that, and before summer. 

I am at work now on an article to close a series on 
Graduated Taxation. I presume you have noted the 
growth of Graduated Tax sentiment. The N. Y. 
Populists adopted it last fall. The Penn. Alliance 
endorsed my bill last Dece "ber and petitions for its 
passage are now being circulated in several states, 
under the auspices of The Graduated Taxer of Berlin, 
Pa. 

I have just prepared my petition to send to Con- 
gress for the third time. Mr. Baker will introduce 
the bill. This graduated tax question is destined to 



VIII 

become one of the leading questions of the near 
future, — possibly of the coming campaign. Both 
Judge Allen and I are on the St. Louis delegation 
and we would like to see graduated taxation put into 
the platform. 

This article I am now at work on will uncover 
some heretofore unseen features of the bill which no 
one has caught onto. If this principle can only be- 
come a leading topic, the party that embraces it 

will sweep the country. 

******* 

Yours very truly, 

Percy Daniels. 



The Midnight Message of Paul Revere. 



CHAPTER I. 



Contents. 1. The Shadows of Nineteenth Century 
Civilization. 2. Drifting into the Breakers. 
3. Every Man's Right. 4. Hypocritical Statutes 
5. The Great Coal Trust. 6. Home use for the 
Monroe Doctrine. 7. Public Sentiment and the 
Common Thief. 8. The Great Pipe Line. 9. A 
Sleeping People. 10. A Protest in Behalf of the 
Victims. 11. The Promise to Move Forward. 
12. The Consistency of Change. 13. Diabolical 
Devices for Plundering the Masses. 14. An 
Infamous Order. 15. " Possessed of a Devil." 

16. Moloch Franchised and Justice Enjoined. 

17. Galling Taxation. 18. How it Works Under 
Present Customs. 19. The Serfs Will Take the 
Knout. 20. Keep Cool: File Closers. 21. Packed 
Courts and a Subsidized Press. 22. Paul Revere's 
Ride. 23. His Message That Echoes Forever- 
more. 24. The Startling Call to the Slaves of 
To-day. 



I. THE SHADOWS OP NINETEENTH CENTURY 
CIVILIZATION AND PHILOSOPHY. 

fHREE-FOURTHS of the progress of the 
world during the last two centuries, in 
mechanics, in the sciences — in what we call 
civilization and culture, has been crowded 
into the last half of this wonderful nine- 
teenth century, and where do we find our- 
selves? 

Our civilization is a civilization of sordid 
and debasing greed; of wild intoxication and 
of a sensuous and senseless vanity. Oui 
ethics is the philosophy of ignoring the great 



CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



duties of life for the purpose of making 
butterflies noble and drones exalted; and our 
religion, as exemplified in a composite per- 
spective of the whole people, and by the 
priests and prelates who honor and serve 
these butterflies and drones first, and then 
Jehovah, is too largely made up in mumbling 
prayers to God, asking Him to prolong our 
folly; to bless our lust for mammon and our 
efforts in teaching contented pagans the 
enervating vices and dubious philosophy of 
our vaunted culture and our watered and 
capitalized parody of civilization, to let the 
true spirit of Christianity find room in the 
composite picture. A pellucid theology has 
formed a combine with mammon worship to 
drive Christianity from the churches, and in 
many cases the doors of so-called sanctuaries 
are alread y closed against the humble fol- 
lowers of the Son of God by the bespangled 
and besotted sentries of greed, conceit and 
pride; and going into the highways and by- 
ways, the fields and forests where the God 
of prophesy, of science and of nature still 
holds communion with His loyal children, 
they find rest and strength and consolation 
in a sanctuary where the "mountains and 
the hills break forth before them into sing- 
ing, and the trees of the fields clap their 
hands. - ' 

The rapid development of the influences 
and growth of the impulses that have 
brought forth these unhallowed results, and 
the wonderful strides that have been made 
under the direction of pampered priests and 
petted professors in the overthrow or sub- 
jugation of every force hostile to their sense- 
less sway, or that even questions their wis- 
dom, threaten the fabric of our institutions 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 






2. DRIFTING INTO THE BREAKERS. 

From thousands of reliable sources in the 
past few years has come the information 
that the nation is drifting from her once safe 
anchorage and fast going toward the break- 
ers. Evidences of this have accumulated 
until information has become knowledge; and 
yet how few among the millions who sup- 
pose they are patriots, stop in their mad 
chase after their tawdry idol to comprehend 
the portentious meaning of this startling 
statement. The shifting scenes and wind 
tossed spray and distant roar seem but to 
offer a transient amusement. 

Do you not know what it means — that mil- 
lions are cringing in want in a land of plenty 
— famishing in the shadow of the graneries 
they have builded and filled? Do you not see 
them lying in the gutter, thirsting, beneath 
the puncheons of wine they have trodden 
out? Can you not hear their pleas for 
shelter as they crouch in the doorways of 
the homes they have made, from which they 
have been cast out? 

We know these things. We see- and hear 
and know them all; but the sea of greed on 
which we float awhile has blurred our com- 
prehension. Our Christian impulses are 
dormant. Our understanding of right and 
wrong is seared and our conception of human 
obligation is paralyzed by contact with the 
grating, grinding forces about us, the danc- 
ing wreckage and projecting rocks — till the 
tales of woe and knowledge of wrong only 
touch our senses like some grand picture of 
a storm at sea. 

A vivid, life-like picture of the mighty 
ocean's fury, of frightful waves ancVtreacher- 
ous crags, a sinking ship and drowning men, 



4 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

hardly disturbs our placid contemplation of 
the work of art; but we pause to pay a tribute 
to the genius of the artist. 

Much in the same spirit we have come to 
look on the latter-clay conditions under 
which we live; the boundless sunshine for 
the few, the endless shadow for the many; 
the feasting and revelry of the classes, the 
long hours of labor and short bill of fare of 
the masses; the marble castles and summer 
villas, the flying yachts and numberless at- 
tendants for the masters, the comfortless 
quarters, the scant raiment and lack of rec- 
reation for the slaves, — as incidents in the 
grand picture of our civilization; and we 
daily join the giddy throng who go to wor- 
ship the genius of the great crooks, with cun- 
ning and brass and brains enough not only to 
plunder the multitude and escape their ven- 
geance, but to rob them of the honor of the 
great works they have reared, the laurels for 
the grand victories they have won. 

3. EVERY MAN'S RIGHT. 

By the laws of God and of nature every 
human being who comes into this world is 
entitled to an opportunity and place to work 
to procure the necessaries of life. This is 
his right as much as to have air at his nos- 
trils for every respiration. 

The Divine command, "In the sweat of 
thy brow shalt thou eat bread," does not 
simply carry the order to labor. It carries 
with it the privilege, the opportunity, the 
right to do this; and he who denies this is 
preaching the doctrine of damnation as an 
amendment to the plan of salvation. 

Our organic law reiterates the Divine com- 
mand; and those who are not willing to see 
it enforced, or even ready to help enforce it, 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE 5 

are traitors to the flag that protects them and 
Pharisees of a civilized idolatry. Republican 
governments are organized to protect the indi- 
vidual in the enjoyment of this right to labor; 
and to guarantee to him against all forces and 
aggressors the inalienable right to life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is 
the promise to, and contract of our govern- 
ment with every one of its loyal citizens. It 
is maintained by them and its expenses paid 
for this purpose, and in keeping this con- 
tract it must defend him in the full enjoy- 
ment of the rights it confers against any 
and all combinations. The facts above 
stated are evidence that it is not keeping its 
contract or fulfilling its mission. They are 
evidence that instead of keeping its contract 
with the individual citizen it is aiding the com- 
binations and has joined the forces oppress- 
ing him. 

There are ample laws to protect him from 
his assailants, but most of them cannot be 
enforced because the courts and the law's 
representatives hold their positions by the 
favor of these powerful interests. Some of 
the laws too that have been passed osten- 
sibly to prevent these outrages, have been 
cunningly drawn to be inoperative and to 
prevent the passage of real remedial meas- 
ures. 

4. HYPOCRITICAL, STATUTES. 

There are law T s to prevent discrimination 
between shippers by railroads; but most of 
them grant rebates to their selected friends. 
If the full penalties could be enforced, they 
would be compelled to forfeit their charters, 
which are accepted under the condition that 
the rights they convey shall be properly 
exercised. 



CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 

There are laws against the combinations 
of corporations for the purpose of controll- 
ing prices or the quantity of their product. 
The Sherman law against trusts was passed 
with a great blare of trumpets and a great 
show of virtue, but it is as harmless and im- 
potent as any of the acts which have been 
passed for the purpose of preventing or head- 
ing off real remedial measures. When the 
U. S. Senate as now organized, passes an 
act for the suppression of the trusts it will 
include a section for the extinction of the U. 
S. Senate. 

5. THE GREAT COAL TRUST. 

The most gigantic combination ever made, 
a combination controlling the output and 
price of anthracite coal and the railroads 
taking it to market, has recently gone into 
operation. 

The New York World of Feb. 3rd, 1896, 
describes it as follows: 

"A new trust, greater, richer, stronger, more im- 
portant than any other trust in existence, has been 
formed and begins actual operations to-day. 

"Involving thousands of miles of railroad and 
more than 82,000,000,000 capital of the Vanderbilts 
and J. Pierpont Morgan, it is far ahead of the 
wildest dreams of wealth and monopoly which the 
lateJay Gould ever conceived. J. Pierpont Morgan 
is the master spirit and originator in the new trust, 
the magnitude of whose operations makes the profits 
of a gold ring seem insignificant and trifling. The 
anthracite coal mining and railroad companies sold 
last year 46,000,000 tons of coal at an average whole- 
sale price of .$3.08. It is proposed by the new trust 
to raise the price to $4 a ton. On decreased pro- 
duction an increased profit of $38,000,000 is assured 
and will be divided among 11 companies. It is easy 
to estimate what a per capita tax this means upon 
the country. 

"The great Coal Trust begins its operations to- 
day by advancing the price of coal 35 cents a ton. 
Tbis increase is only the first step, but it means over 
$15,000,000 increased cost to consumers and even 
greater profit to the Trust, as many middlemen and 
selling agents are to be dispensed with. 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 7 

"The permanency and success of the Trust is not 
doubted by the most skeptical in Wall street, be- 
cause the companies which have broken every pre- 
vious trust agreement are now absolutely controlled 
by Mr. Morgan or the Vanderbilts. The new trust 
is a giant, compared to which the Standard Oil, the 
Sugar, the Tobacco and the Leather Trusts are 
mere pigmies. A. A McLeod, during his meteoric 
career as President of the Reading Railroad and 
coal mines, tried to form such a trust five years ago, 
but the New Jersey Legislature annulled his lease 
of two rival companies and J. Pierpont Morgan fin- 
ished his career by shutting him out of New Eng- 
land and forcing the securities McLeod had pledged 
to carry through his Boston and Maine deal on to the 
market in a panic. Now more than 90 per cent, of 
the Reading Railroad stock has been deposited with 
Mr Morgan for reorganization and a voting trust 
created for five years. 

"The magnitude of these interests since the mo- 
nopoly of anthracite coal mining has now been 
added to the enormous railroad interests already 
centralized is so vast and far reaching that bankers 
and railroad men cannot estimate its ultimate effect. 

"Excluding the bonds the new coal and railroad 
trust stands for nearly $1,900,000,000 capital and 
24,530 miles of railroad. This capital stands for two 
and a half times the entire bonded debt of the United 
States." 

This new trust can organize an army as 

•'Iron police," and by advancing the price of 

coal to pay them, quarter them on the 

families of the East. 

6. HOME USE FOR THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The Monroe Doctrine applied to the de- 
fense of the rights of the people demands 
that a measure for the suppression of this 
and similar combinations be enacted at once. 
Though we in Kansas burn very little anthra- 
cite coal, we use oil. sugar, matches, and a 
hundred other articles that are produced and 
distributed under similar restrictions; and 
every new one of these illegal combinations 
formed, helps in organizing others and taxes 
the people for the funds to enable them to do 
it. Every one of them destroys more and 
more of our constitutional rights, encroach- 
ing farther and farther on the limits of indi- 
vidual liberty.. 



8 CUTTING THE GOEDIAN KNOT. 

This new trust has now the power to lower 
the wages of every anthracite miner, or to 
cut off their supplies of food and fuel at any 
whim or caprice, any tyrannical impulse or 
sudden craving for more dividends, of the 
management. The new profit they notify 
the public they demand, is a notice to East- 
ern manufacturers and their help, to the men 
who handle their goods, and to the railroads 
that take them to the consumer, to add 
another item to their expense account. 
Their new profit is to begin with an addition- 
al tax of $38,003,000, and this is levied, not 
simply on the consumers of anthracite coal, 
but on the industries and people of the whole 
country. 

This new combination is in open defiance 
of law, and its expressed purpose is a notice 
that in violation of statutes it will confiscate 
and steal from the people the coming year 
$38,000,000 more than last year. 

7. PUBLIC SENTIMENT AND THE COMMON 
THIEF. 

If a horse thief or a safe cracker was 
known to' be lurking in the neighborhood 
seeking an opportunity to ply his vocation, 
officers would expend the value of a horse or 
a safe if necessary, to prevent his operations 
or catch the little miscreant, for the purpose 
of showing their efficiency. Public senti- 
ment is brave enough to require the enforce- 
ment of law against the ragged and hungry 
pilferer, but not against our spangled and daz- 
zling pirates. Individual sentiment favors the 
enforcement of the law against both classes 
of criminals, but public sentiment, that teaches 
the officer what law to enforce and what to ig- 
nore, cowers before the frown of these petted 
pirates, and cries for the release of Barabbas. 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 9 

8. THE GREAT PIPE LINE. 

So in open violation of law, these leeches 
have been permitted to prosecute their de- 
signs and protected in perfecting their ap- 
pliances for plundering the masses, until 
they have practically got a pipe line laid and 
in operation, from every grainery and feed 
lot in the West; from every cotton field, rice 
swamp, and truck patch in the South; from 
every forge and bench and case and block. 
North or South — a pipe line through local 
trade centers to the great commercial marts, 
that carries all the profits, and often more, of 
our industrial and producing classes to the 
coffers of the great speculators and bond 
manipulators and usurers and plunderers 
who own the lines. And gliding along 
through this dank and sinuous way, is a cur- 
rent that never turns — a tide that never ebbs 
— flowing without cessation and with con- 
stantly increasing volume, always and ever 
pouring its stream of spoils into the coffers 
and vaults and warehouses of the great 
pirate chiefs. 

Public sentiment has been gradually edu- 
cated and trained by influential papers, and 
by public speakers and instructors who are 
owned or leased by the owners of these pipe 
lines, into assenting to the wild theory that 
the ability shown and success achieved in 
designing and constructing these gigantic 
systems of fraud, have given present claim- 
ants vested rights in their plunder. When 
this present appalling and seemingly im- 
pregnable system of brigandage and impos- 
ture was in its infancy, the Editor's Historical 
Record in Harpers Magazine for April, 1873, 
contained the following in an article on 
transportation (p. 787). 



10 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



In railroad operations, financially considered, 
there has been the same tendency which has been 
shown in the operations of the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company. The railroad, like the telegraph, 
owed its existence in the first instance to necessity — 
a necessity absolutely imperative in a country of 
such extent as ours. The wealth of far-seeing capi- 
talists came forward to meet this necessity before 
the latter can be said to have been fairly appreciated 
by the people, or even by our legislators. The 
last decade has been the beginning of the specula- 
tors' Millennium. Our civil war opened up to them 
the promised land In the fluctuations and uncer- 
tainties of a troubulous era, the country, standing in 
need of wealth that could immediately be trans- 
formed into supplies for its armies in the fields, was, 
or seemed to be, compelled to enter into a hasty 
compact with the capitalists, whereby, the latter 
gained marvelous advantages — first, in securing a 
most profitable investment of their wealth; and 
secondly, in securing for themselves not only an 
extraordinary rate of interest, but also immunities 
from the taxation usually incident to remunerative 
investments. Thus a heavy burden of taxation fell 
upon labor and upon productive industry. The era 
of railroad speculation followed; and a new burden 
was added to the monetary exaction upon industry 
expressed in taxation. 

******* 

"These railroad speculators also seemed to respond 
to a pressing need, and they went to Washington 
with grand schemes for "developing the resources 
of the country. ' ' They knew of what stuff politicians 
are made. Oakes Ames knew his ground. Thomas 
C. Durant boldly confesses having paid for the 
election of an Iowa Senator So with Burbridge and 
the rest. Land grants were necessary to furnish a 
basis for mortgages, and these could be obtained 
only by Congressional action. The grants are se- 
cured, the bonds are issued, the roads are built, the 
stock becomes valuable, and at the proper time is 
sold, passing into the hands of other speculators, 
who neither care for nor study the interests of the 
community. In this case the owners of the bonds 
are helpless The speculators and the politicians 
banded together have entangled them in hopeless 
embarrassment. 

"The plea under which this system originates — the 
necessity of railways for the development of the 
resources of the country — is a just one The fault is 
in the system and its inevitable results. The evil 
will only be removed when railroads are owned by 
those who construct them, and who manage them 
in the interests of commerce, clearly understood 
and adequately met. 

"The internal commerce of the United States is 
greater than that of any other five nations. But 
the fruits of this vast industry are harvested by mo- 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 11 



nopolists who oppress the agriculturist and pro- 
ducer on one hand, and the consumer on the other 
They control legislation, and assume imperial powers 
over citizens as over the industry of the country. 
The rates of transportation are raised to the highest 
point that will allow of the bare existence of in- 
dustry. 

If those who were directly interested in the in- 
dustry of the country had built our railroads, the 
carrying interests would have been subservient and 
secondary, as it should be. We should have now 
more as well as cheaper facilities of transportation, 
and the wealth which is now drained from industry, 
and which drifts into speculative channels, would 
return into the legitimate channels of industry. 
Labor, both agricultural and mechanical, would 
have been emancipated from serfdom, and the dig- 
nity of labor would have led to a universal system 
of industrial education. The exorbitant cost of 
transportation has more than any thing else en- 
hanced the difficulties of the labor problem. 

* * * * * * * 

The universal opposition of labor and industry 
throughout the country to the railroad monopolies 
is evident. Every trade congress, and especially 
every agricultural convention, makes this the most 
prominent element in its discussions. 

******* 

The railroad is of necessity a monopoly, and the 
tendency to consolidation is natural, and is not in it- 
self an evil. The simplicity and unity of manage- 
ment are economical and desirable. It is the pur- 
pose of consolidation that is offensive, because it is 
tyrannical because the concentration is one of despot- 
ism. 

The State has these powers. It can revoke the 
charters, or it can buy the property of the railroads, 
or it can supervise their operations by commissions, 
as in Illinois and Massachusetts. 

The State can plainly prevent frauds like those 
perpetrated upon the public by the Erie Railway 
Company, which pays dividends on stock fraudently 
issued. 

The report of the Massachusetts Board of Rail- 
road Commissioners is extremely discouraging, es- 
pecially in the conclusions which it arrives at indi- 
cating the inefficacy of mere legislation. The better 
success of European nations in the management of 
railroads has been accomplished almost exclusively 
through the machinery of the executive. 

9. A SLEEPING PEOPLE. 

The American people have been sleeping 
since the above article was written and al- 
lowed the trusts to multiply; the corporations 
to increase their power; the courts to feed 



12 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

them from our cribs; politics to become the 
science of making plunderers appear re - 
spectable and aiding pirates to call themselves 
honest, and the slickest band of thieves that 
ever the sun shown on to complete their sys- 
tem of pipe lines and garner the spoils 

The great problem before us now is how to 
devise and construct a channel for a counter 
current without the use of a bayonet or the 
startling blasts of war. 

When we can start a counter current that 
will carry a volume twice as large as the one 
that now drains the pockets of labor, we will 
send an invitation to the usurping Plutocrat 
to lay aside his brief authority and abdicate 
his crown; an invitation that will be as effect- 
ive as the call of the archangel, or the united 
tramp of labors legions in marshal array, to 
restore their exiled Prince. 

10. A PROTEST IN BEHALF OF THE VICTIMS. 

The Omaha platform is a living protest 
against these conditions. It is a warning to 
the owners of these systems of drainage, not 
to make their capacity any greater, and not 
to extend the system. While it says •'Wealth 
belongs to him who creates it," it fails to say 
that wealth acquired by the new processes of 
stealing gives present possessors no more 
vested rights in it than that taken by the gen- 
tlemanly highwayman. It says to these 
plunderers, as the Republican party first 
said to the slavery extremists. Stop where 
you are ! Showing that those who have the 
wealth of the country have done the least to 
create it, it does not propose a way by which 
those who have created it may yet acquire 
some of it. It concedes it contains no meas- 
ure adequate for that object; and yet that is 
the inspiring purpose of the People's party. 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 13 

But at the same time it extends an invitation 
to all its members to suggest something that 
will restore a part of America's wealth to its 
creators. It asked for projects that might 
be more effective, far reaching, and accepta- 
ble to the Farmers Alliance voters than the 
chance to borrow on products which was of- 
fered to the farmers in the sub-treasury bill. 

11. THE PROMISE TO MOVE FORWARD. 

The Omaha platform is not only a living 
protest against the conditions under which 
we live, but it contains a most lucid and 
truthful description of them. Denunciation 
of unjust conditions, discriminating laws and 
corrupt practices are useful, both for calling 
public attention to them, and when made by 
as earnest and patriotic an assemblage as 
convened at Omaha, July 4th, 1892, as the 
index of a purpose to aid in their correction. 
This was the object of the statements in the 
platform. It was not simply to testify to 
their existence, but to record an intent to 
right them, which from its organization has 
been the purpose of the People's party. 

As a member of that convention I know 
they did not consider that the changes and 
legislation called for in the declaration 
would restore the wealth of the nation to 
those who have earned it. These would be 
a first and long step in stopping the spoliation 
but not in correcting the wrong. It was not 
supposed that the party would be satisfied or 
its mission fulfilled by the enactment of the 
measures outlined in the declaration; and in 
fact the preamble asserts that "The forces 
of reform this day organized will never cease 
to move forward until every wrong is reme- 
died and equal rights and equal privileges 
securely established for all the men and 
women of this country." 



14 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

Their purpose was and is to right every 
wrong; and they expected to add to their 
propositions as investigation revealed the 
necessity. 

12. THE CONSISTENCY OF CHANGE. 

Emerson says: 

"Speak now what you think in hard words; and 
to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard 
words, though it contradicts every thing you said 
to-day." 

This same idea appears in the introduction 
to Pope's Homer as follows: 

"To be content with what we at the present know 
is for the most part to shut our eyes against con- 
viction; since, from the very gradual character of 
our education, we must continually forget, and 
emancipate ourselves from knowledge previously 
acquired. We must set aside old notions and em- 
brace new ones and as we learn, we must be daily 
unlearning something which it has cost us no small 
]ibor and anxiety to acquire." 

At Omaha we spoke what we had fully 
thought out, but we left many ideas and 
dimly seen thoughts to grow and mature. 

A to-morrow has come with its more com- 
plete view of the situation : — a to-morrow with 
its new light, its brighter opportunities, its 
additional incentives, and looking at the 
covenant there made with the toilers, we 
find we have promised to "never cease to 
move forward until every wrong is remedied. ' r 

13. DIABOLICAL DEVICES FOR PLUNDERING 

THE MASSES. 

Since the date of the Omaha convention 
the conditions we deplore and hope to correct 
have been rapidly growing worse. At the 
same time our knowledge of the causes and 
conception of the danger they threaten has 
steadily increased. The more diabolical 
financial policy of government has been a 
wonclerous help to the masters in their 
schemes of spoliation; but even this has played 
•second fiddle to the use made of the ever in- 



THE MIONTGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE 15 

creasing power which constantly flows into 
the hands of the few, in putting in operation 
new and more intricate machinery for carry- 
ing out their plans of plunder and persecution. 
The developments of the past four years 
have revealed something beyond the necessity 
of adding more stringent projects to the foun- 
dation laid at Omaha. They have shown the 
utter absurdity of trying to restore a part of 
the wealth of the nation to those who have 
created it, by any multiplicity of projects that 
leaves in the hands of the few, the billions 
they have forced labor to halt and deliver by 
standing in the highway, armed with legisla- 
tive mandates and court decrees, which they 
have bought and paid for the same as the 
relatively honorable and prosperous highway- 
man pays for his Winchester; or by any new 
devices for borrowing that would be out of 
reach of those who need help the most. 
Hence we realize that the necessity for reme- 
dial measures becomes more urgent and im- 
perative. The necessity for them could 
hardly have a more cogent illustration than 
the plans of the great coal trust already re- 
ferred to, or the reports of financial trans- 
actions furnished the courts in the Santa Fe 
reorganization and receivership. 

14. AN INFAMOUS ORDER. 

Another telling illustration of recent oc- 
currence, is the nefarious decision of the in- 
come tax cases by the Supreme Court, that 
practically amends the constitution by blot- 
ting out a right under it which the people 
have enjoyed and exercised at their pleasure 
for a century. 

This decision reveals anew the spirit of the 
oppositions which the masses have got to 
overcome, and the combinations that have 



16 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

been made to thwart them. The effort to put 
an insignificant tax of one-tenth of one per 
cent on a class that would not feel it, was 
but a sop at best, and its defeat shows the 
futility of striking a pawing, prancing bull 
with a wisp of hay, when, as in this case, 
there are effective weapons at hand with 
which to force the threatening bovine back to 
his stanchions, as there also are to drive this 
audacious pack of mutineers back into the 
ranks of patriots. 

15. "POSSESSED OF A DEVIL." 

Our constitution has grown in the past 100 
years. It is putting out horns now. In 
Washington's time an income tax was con- 
stitutional. The men who made it were there 
to keep its vital parts in order and in sight. 
In Lincoln's day the brazen beast had not 
the nerve or power to put his muddy hoofs 
on this inherent right to blot it out. Now 
the masses sleep. A traitorous gang is in 
command. Their only aim is plunder. And 
while the slaves are sleeping or cower before 
the master's lash, this justice scorning, law 
defying gang tear down what they please 
that stands twixt them and what they seek. 

Under these new incentives, is the propi- 
tious time for the drum corps of the masses 
to sound their reveille; and lines to form to 
stop the imperious and usurping millionaires 
in their mad rush to further loot the camps 
of labor and then dash on to anarchy. 

This income tax decision should be enough 
to convince the West and South of the im- 
possibility of ever again getting a show of 
justice under our present constitution. Be- 
fore this last straw was laid on our backs we 
felt we had been robbed long enough by the 
barbarities of capital in its control of com- 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 17 

mercial channels, by the operation of the 
pipe lines it has constructed, and by methods 
and measures of taxation that were inaug- 
urated to meet other conditions than those 
under which we now live. This last straw 
is an order from Plutocracy's court to the 
wealthy East to shirk more of their fair share 
of public burdens than on special occasions 
they had been before allowed to. They know 
this was done for the purpose of fastening an 
additional ratio on the impoverished pro- 
ducers. 

16. MOLOCH FRANCHISED AND JUSTICE EN- 

JOINED. 

Though made by Plutocracy's vassals it 
carries the weight of the whole government 
authority. It is not only an injunction 
against molesting their smuggling pipe line 
or disturbing, even by dropping a pebble, the 
steady flow of the great current of the 
nation's profits, at the outlet; but it conveys 
to the owners of this line a perpetual and ex- 
clusive franchise; prohibiting the people, 
whose profits it sucks up, from constructing 
a dandelion stem pipe to start a counter 
current. 

The people of the West and South under- 
stand what this decision signifies. They 
realize the portentious meaning of the notice 
it serves. This notice never would have 
been served did not the masters in their 
castles feel secure in the belief that the 
slaves in the fields were powerless to resist. 

17. GALLING TAXATION. 

The appalling injustice of our system of 
taxation was too much for the masses to 
patiently bear without this last straw. Be- 
fore this last encroachment our constitution 
permitted and authorized the wealthy to 



18 CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 

shirk their just proportion of public burdens. 
As now amended by the courts, it orders them to. 
The plundered masses will now demand of 
these haughty tyrants, who were not satisfied 
with the unequal privileges they before en- 
joyed, a change in the constitution if they 
have an ambition to again possess the man- 
hood and enjoy the opportunities of a free 
people. They will demand too, that the 
more oppressive, galling, and piratical pro- 
cesses of plunder shall be terminated; and 
they are deliberately debating the question 
whether the present possessors of the bulk 
of the nation's accumulations have acquired 
vested rights in their booty, and whether 
some of it may not be rightly restored to the 
pockets of the victims, by a peaceable pro : 
cess of taxation and public expenditure. 

But very few yet realize the full injustice 
of our constitution under the present dis- 
tribution of values, w T hich says in Art. 1. 
Section 2, ' 'Direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several states according to their 
respective numbers." That is, that it must 
be in proportion to the number of people in 
each state. 

18. HOW IT WORKS UNDER PRESENT CUS- 
TOMS. 

The methods of indirect taxation also, 
under which most of our present national 
revenues are derived, are practically the 
same, amounting to a per capita tax. So if 
we see how the direct tax provided for in the 
constitution, would work under present con- 
ditions, we will see with very little deviation, 
the injustice of present methods. The wrongs 
the latter have already accomplished are 
beyond computation, but they are not beyond 
the power of a Republican government, 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. ID 



justly administered, to correct, so far as the 
living- go. That they are beyond the pur- 
pose of our present ruling forces needs no 
argument to sustain, as they are a result of 
their schemes and efforts and our apathy and 
blind confidence. The question now is: Are 
they beyond our power and ability to remedy? 

To know by how serious an imposition the 
funds for the support of the National govern- 
ment are collected, will certainly stimulate 
the efforts for a change. In round numbers 
it costs us seven dollars apiece to pay the 
yearly bills of the government. The assessed 
valuation per capita of some of the states in 
1890 was as follows: Massachusetts, $962; 
Rhode Island, $931; California, $911; New 
Hampshire, $699; Iowa, $272; Kansas, $244; 
Georgia, $226; Illinois, $212; Nebraska, $174; 
South Carolina, $146; North Carolina, $145. 

The people of all these states are practi- 
cally taxed seven dollars apiece per annum, 
so the man in Massachusetts where the valu- 
ation averages $962, with a family of five, 
pays $35 on $4,840, and the man in Kansas 
pays $35 on $1220, and the man in North 
Carolina pays $35 on $725. Reduced to the 
usual formula, it shows that the Massachu- 
setts man pays 73 cents on the dollar; Rhode 
Island, 75 cents; California, 77 cents; New 
Hampshire, $1.00; Iowa, $2.57; Kansas, $2.87; 
Georgia. $3. 10; Illinois, $3.30; Nebraska, $4.02; 
and the Carolinas $4.80 and $4.83. Thus 
when $1.00 on the $100.00 is levied on the 
people of Massachusetts, we in Kansas have 
to pay $3.93 per $100.00, the citizens of Ne- 
braska $5.51 and the Carolinas $6.58 and $6.62. 

This computation is based wholly on the 
assessed valuation; and while being reliable 
enough to show the abominable injustice of 
the system and of the constitutional pro vis- 



20 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

ions, there are two other factors that would 
have to be considered to reach a perfectly 
accurate result. These factors are the ratio 
of assessed to true value and the amount of 
property assessed in the several states which 
is owned by non-residents. There is no 
available data for ascertaining these other 
quantities. The census reports give tables 
that jump at the former, but there are no re- 
ports that even jump at the latter. Taking 
the census ratios of assessed to true value as 
a basis, the disparity as between states, in 
the above figures, wo aid be reduced in some 
cases; and taking the actual ownership of 
property by residents, the relative burden on 
the people of many of the debtor states would 
be increased. The following are some of the 
ratios of assessed to true value reported by 
the census of 1890. 

Percent. Percent. 

New Hampshire 81 Massachusetts 77 

Rhode Island 64 Maine. 63 

New Jersey 62 Vermont 61 

Georgia 49 New York 44 

Pennsylvania 43 South Carolina 42 

Indiana 41 North Carolina 40 

Kansas 19 Illinois 16 

Nebraska 14 

Taking the states of New York and Georgia 
as illustrations, we see New York, assessed on 
the basis of 44 per cent., has $631 per capita; 
and Georgia, assessed at 49 per cent. , has $226 
per capita. So if assessed on the same basis 
the people of Georgia pay three times as 
much on the $100 as the people of New York 
on all the property in the state. As they own 
a less per cent of the state's wealth than the 
people of New York do of their state's wealth, 
the disparity and injustice is increased. The 
only way these two factors can be used is to 
let one offset the other, as in some instances 
the influence of one would predominate and 
in some the other. 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 21 



19. THE SERFS WILL TAKE THE KNOUT. 

All classes save professional bandits and 
their fawning: vassals deplore so great an in- 
justice. It seems too great a wrong to 
meekly bear as long as we already have; and 
would be for our sturdy predecessors who 
laid the foundations of a Republic, or for any 
save a race of slaves; but it is really a much 
less burden of wrong than others we are now 
bearing with all the grace of serfs. 

The plundered masses have however de- 
cided that additional burdens must not be 
imposed. To prevent- this they will demand 
a change in our fundamental law to meet the 
changed conditions under which we live. 

They will do more. They will demand that 
the machinery of these plundering schemes 
be stopped. 

They ivill do more. They will demand of 
the robbers that the machinery be reversed 
for the purpose of gradually restoring a part 
of that which they have earned and lost, by 
being compelled at the command of boughten 
legislatures and pensioned courts to stand 
and deliver. This is the great question they 
now have under consideration in " Committee 
of the whole. " It is not the masses in any 
one party simply that are considering this 
question. The masses of all parties are en- 
gaged in the discussion. 

Every day brings new friends to the 
measure, as the heated debate unfolds the 
perfidy of its opponents. A convention is 
coming in the near future, at which this will 
be a leading subject, They prefer a consti- 
tutional convention, held under legal condi- 
tions as a deliberative body; but the burden of 
injustice has reached that point,— the shackles 
of their bondage have become so galling, 



22 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 



that the convention will be called if they are 
forced to meet at a drum call that sounds the 
"Long Roll."' 

20. KEEP COOL: FILE CLOSERS. 

Five years ago during a debate in the U. S. 
Senate Mr. Stewart said on this question, 
• "If there is no humanity in the possessors of 
accumulated capital, there is power in revo- 
lution." And in an address to the Kansas 
Bar Association on Jan. 26th, 1892. Judge 
Seymour D. Thompson (testifying to the 
propriety and relevancy of such statements 
and conclusions), said: 

"The right of trial by jury has been set aside in vast 
reaches of country; the courts have gone into the 
business of the common carrier; the by-laws of the 
corporations have overtopped in the 'judicial esti- 
mation, the legislation of states which were on e 
called sovereign; the constitutional ordinances, 
earned on the battle field and intended as charters of 
human liberty, have been turned into the shield of 
incorporated monopoly. The barons of corporate 
powers, outrivaling in wealth and splendor the 
merchant kings of Venice, have purchased of venal 
legislators seats in the Senate of the United States, 
and have found no difficulty in placing their allies on 
the judicial bench. Throughout all this the press, the 
fiei/i* of a free people has been directly or indirectly 
subsidized into silence " 

21. PACKED COURTS AND A SUBSIDIZED 

PRESS. 

The courts have not only been packed to 
sustain the usurpation of capital and corpora- 
tions, and legislatures bribed to pass shield- 
ing and abetting laws, and the press sub- 
sidized into silence, but these same allies 
have conspired to uphold, defend, and ap- 
plaud our unjust and pernicious adjustment 
of schemes and rates of taxation. 

There is no excuse but that of a desire to 
be smeared with the same infatuation as 
possesses those who worship at the shrine of 
the Golden Calf and have discarded all sensi- 
ble consideration of their duty to their fellow- 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 23 

men or their country, that will prevent the 
wronged masses of the American people from 
resorting to the use of muscle to re-establish 
their rights and repossess their lost freedom 
and treasure, just so soon as they realize 
that the last chance to do this by the use of 
the ballot is gone. 

22. PAUL revere's ride. 

No more pointed illustration of the absurd- 
ity and iniquity of our present systems of 
taxation can be found, than that illustrated 
above. Verily '"to him that hath shall be 
given" in Republics when run by him who 
hath money but not mercy; — who hath cheek 
but not charity. How long think you. that 
the men who, on not a tenth of the injustice, 
burned the Gaspee in Narragansett bay in 

1772, or made a teapot of Boston Harbor in 

1773. or adopted the Mechlenberg Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1775, would meekly 
and supinely bear so amazing an injustice ? 
How long before a Paul Revere would start 
from every state capital to ride to every 
county seat and country hamlet to call Free- 
men(y) and Patriots from shop and field. 

How long before a Paul Revere would be, 
with 

23. HIS MESSAGE THAT ECHOES FOREVER- 

MORE. 

"Ready to ride and spread the alarm, 
"Through every Middlesex village and farm, 

"For the country folk to be up and arm." 

******* 

"But mostly he watched with eager search, 

"The belfry tower of the Old North Church, 

"As it rose above the graves on the hill, 

"Lonely and spectral and sombre and still: 

"And lo! as he looks on the belfry's height; 

"A glimmer and then a gleam of light. 

"He springs to the saddle; the bridle he turns, 

"But lingers and gazes till full on his sight, 

"A second lamp in the belfry burns, 

"A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

"A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 



24 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

"And beneath, from the pebbles in passing a spark 
"Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet; 
"That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the 

light, 
"The fate of a nation was riding that night, 
"And the spark struck out by that steed an his flight, 
"Kindled the land into flame with its heat." 

* + # * * * * 

"So through the night rode Paul Revere; 

"And so through the night went his cry of alarm, 

"To every Middlesex village and farm — 

"A ery of defiance and not of fear. 

"A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

"And a word that shall echo forevermore! 

"For borne on the night wind of the Past, 

"Through all our history to the last, 

"In the hours of darkness and peril and need, 

"The people will waken and listen to hear, 

"The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

"And the midnight message of Paul Revere." 

We in our history have reached an era of 
"darkness, and peril, and need;'* an hour 
when the people must ' 'waken and listen to 
hear the midnight message of Paul Revere." 

24. THE STARTLING CALL TO THE SLAVES 
OF TODAY. 

And what in this hour of peril and need, 

Can curb the rank follies of passion and greed, 

What from the light of that glorious fray, 

Is the message he sends to the slaves of to-day? 

And what in this night says his cry of alarm? 

What warning sends he to each village and farm? 

Awaken ye toilers! Arouse from your dreams! 
Put your ballots together to stop the huge streams 
Of booty that flows to the coffers of wealth, 
From the pockets of labor, by channels of stealth ; 
Unceasingly flows in flood or in drouth, 
To plunder the toilers of the North and the South. 

That is the warning: the hour is here, 
When the startling message of Paul Revere, 
With its cry of defiance, its note in the night, 
Will call forth the patriot hosts for the fight, 

Will awaken the slave 

To fetter the knave, 
Now lord of a Nation he used to fear. 

The need of the hour is a new Combine ; 
A coming together of once hostile ranks, 
To call down the tyrant and twist the spine, 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 



Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks. 

A co-operation for saving the nation, 

Of the bold Johnny Rebs with the brave Billy Yanks. 

Then up and at them grenadiers: 

Let us merge once hostile ranks. 

We can stop the taunts and jeers 

Of the millionaire cranks. 

We can join to hush the fears, 

Of the millions now called tramps. 

And unite to dry the tears 

Of despairing wife and maiden; 

We can bring a future laden, 

Not with doubt but with fruition 

As we throttle superstition. 

Brigadiers of labor legions, 
Not the Piute's submissive vassal — 
Called from North and Southern regions, 
Ever faithful friends of freedom; 
That from Justice's honored castle 
We may drive the hosts of treason, — 
That from Justice's honored castle, — 
We may hurl the wild pretender 
And install our old defender; 
Muster! then to spread the story, 
Of our exiled Prince's glory; 
Muster ! now to sweep the plain ! 
And seat hi-n on his throne again. 

Then touch elbows for a nation, 
That again will give salvation, 
To the mass who've brought it glory: 
That will strangle superstition, 
And consign to long perdition, 
The vicious measures of the classes; 
And work out a quick fruition, 
As wrong doers reach contrition, 
For the toiling, burdened masses; 
And recall the ancient story. 

This is the message of Paul Revere, 

His cry of defiance and not of fear. 

'Tis his startling call from that famous affray, 

To the tax plundered toilers, — the slaves of to-day . 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 27 



Hew to the Line- Then and Now. 

1856-18%. 



CHAPTER II. 

Contents. 1. Then. 2. The New Slavery. 3. The 
Case Stated to the Court. 4. A Precedent Ex- 
amined. 5. The Two Paths. 6 A Good Witness. 
7. A Press Comment:— Now. 8. A Lost Battle. 
9. Will we win the Next. 10. A Talk to the 
Jury. 11. Hewing to the Line. 12. A Steadfast 
Purpose. 13. A Warning Torpedo. 14. No 
"Triple Alliance" for Reformers. 15. The Grip 
of a Great Corporation. 16. Blind Watchmen to 
Retire. 17. Correcting the Records to "Hew to 
the Line." 18. Kansans to the Front. 



1. THEN. 1856. 

jip^ANSAS was the preliminary battle 
3P2 field of the great struggle of a third 
of a century ago, that changed the peculiar 
social system of half the country, and wiped 
out the institution of slavery on which it was 
based. For years before that conflict, the 
policy of parties had been moulded and dis- 
torted to serve the purpose of the excited and 
aggressive leaders of the Southern people, 
until the then old parties become their pliant 
and submissive dupes. 

2. THE NEW SLAVERY. 

Another system of slavery has now suc- 
ceeded the one then destroyed: a system 
covering the nation instead of a subdivision 
This new form of bondage is industrial 
slavery — a system unknowm to law — in which 



28 



CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



the master has not even a property interest 
in the slave. The great leaders who sup- 
port and defend this new system have been 
granted the power, the same as was given to 
the impetuous Southern leaders fifty years 
ago, to mould the intent and distort the 
policy of the two largest political parties of 
the present. The iron grip and the relent- 
less purpose of the masters in this new sys- 
tem — our Barons of commerce and Lords of 
finance — find expression and consummation 
through their control of these party leaders, 
including a few Alopaths, a few Homeopaths, 
but mostly the quacks of statesmanship. 

By artifice and strategy — by such cunning 
schemes and vicious methods as are unknown 
to those who retain the common virtues of 
civilized mankind, and which would add an 
indellible disgrace to the common outlaw who 
has not the means to corruptly enjoy the 
favors of courts or the support of legisla- 
tures — these two forces — the personation of 
inordinate greed and of craftily acquired 
power — the one as a reigning despot, the 
other as a salaried vassal — have so perverted 
and besotted these great political machines, 
that their whole effort and energy and 
strength is centered in the one diabolical pur- 
pose, to enlarge, as steadily and rapidly as 
the surrounding conditions, and the develop- 
ment through their subordinates in the 
direction of party affairs of the requisite sub- 
serviance in the ranks will permit, the power 
and jurisdiction of the master over the slave 
and his family: And at the same time to in- 
crease the restrictions on and curtail the 
movements and opportunities of the slave; 
gradually increasing the meagerness of his 
food and raiment and shelter, and multiply- 
ing the barriers against his escape. 






HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 29 

3. THE CASE STATED TO THE COURT 

Another struggle between the forces of the 
master and the hosts that protest against and 
suffer from this new system of slavery has 
commenced. The victims of industrial 
slavery are raising their heads to find free 
air. Again the camps of the contending 
forces are pitched on Kansas soil and the 
rumble of the first sharp encounter echoes 
over her hilltops, and the thrilling peans of 
victory sweep up her luxuriant valleys. 
Once more the eyes of the Nation are turned 
toward Kansas. The friends of the master 
gaze in 'dread or dispair : The friends of the 
slave see '-'our flag is still there." 

4. A PRECEDENT EXAMINED. 

When the compromises of Democratic leg- 
islation opened this territory to the slave 
driver with his chattels, the Nation was 
trembling with excitement. The purpose of 
the North that Kansas soil should not be pol- 
luted by the blighting influences of slavery, 
was not diminished when they were out- 
generaled, and driven before the uplifted 
mace of the courts and the threatening 
gavels of congress into the open arena. 
They at once made ready to prosceute their 
case before the courts of the gods. The 
South were no less active in efforts to hold 
the advantage they had gained. In this ap- 
peal from court and congress both sides 
became plaintiffs. 

Under such circumstances it was inevitable 
that all classes of enthusiasts, and all shades 
of adventurers should be drawn to the forum 
of the prairies, and join the contending fac- 
tions. Many came seeking homes; many in- 
spired by a simple sense of duty; more by a 
thirst for adventure; others by an inveterate 



SO CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 

hatred, either of those from the North who 
having fought long and earnestly to keep 
slavery in quarantine, were ready now to 
defy the authority of government as well as 
those inarching to uphold the aggressive acts 
and virulent purpose of the pro-slavery side, 
or by a hatred of the latter for their bitter 
defense of the institution: And still others 
looking for a chance for booty, seeking a 
freedom to plunder; considering little the 
principles involved in the struggle, and 
caring less. 

5. THE TWO PATHS. 

To-day, looking back to the efforts of the 
struggling free state men and seeing the 
factions into which they were divided; — the 
lack of harmony in their councils and of co- 
operation in their movements; the lack of 
authority to cement them together, and the 
plenitude of personal jealousies and local 
interests to stir up discord and stimulate sus- 
picion; — noting these adverse conditions, and 
that the right was reached in spite of them, 
we can see that destiny had offered the free 
state forces the choice of the roads to success; 
the long rugged dangerous, bloody, by 
scattering charges and marches of separate 
factions; the other shorter, and less danger- 
ous; making their plans in harmonious 
councils and moving with united forces and 
a purpose that eliminates individual claims 
and local interests. 

There was not that sinking of individual 
ambitions and blending of factional efforts 
that would have enabled them to "Hew to the 
Line" and close up their ranks. Discord and 
jealousies, scattered and independent forces 
and conflicting projects dragged the com- 
batants over the long and rugged way. 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 31 

(3. - A COO I) WITNESS. 

Governor Robinson, inhis "Kansas C< nflict" 

thoroughly uncovers this phase of their diffi- 
culties and varying fortunes. On page 331 
he says— speaking of one of the leaders: 

"These are all of his exploits except stripping 
Lawrence of its arms find men to help him escape 
from 2800 Missourians in September. These particu- 
lars are given simply because, on account of the 
scribblings of hero worshipers, these men have been 
made to appear as the saviors of Kansas, when from 
the standpoint of the free state policy, Kansas 
would have been saved with much less suffering and 
bloodshed without than with them." 

", A PRESS COMMENT THEREON. 

The '-Lawrence Gazette" in a comment on 
the '-Kansas Conflict" says: 

"It was a battle against the greatest odds that was 
begun in Kansas in 1854." * * * * . "Horace 
Greely said the chances were four to one that they 
would fail. At their gateway was a .herd of ruffians, 
bold, insolent, unscrupulous; always ready to dash 
through and commit any kind of depredation. 
Within the portals was another host of the enemy, 
the pro-slavery settlers. And within their own 
household were dangerous elements — some too timid, 
some too aggressive, some thoughtful, not for the 
cause of freedom, but for their own personal and 
political ambition. 

"Between misguided sympathizers, foolish friends, 
unsafe leaders and overpowering foes, is it not re- 
markable that the battle was won?" 

But destiny had decreed that, while ambi- 
tion and error, prejudice and discord might 
prolong the struggle, the Free State forces 
should win the fight, and win it on the open- 
ing of a greater contest that their struggles 
and sacrifices had made inevitable. 

NOW. 

In how far different a condition are tne 
forces now rallying on Kansas soil to over- 
turn the new system of slavery, from that 
which disturbed the camps and confused tin- 
councils of the early pioneers? 

"Memories and emotions" will be a futile 
and useless armament in the hands of the so- 
called "Redeemers" for winning the next 



32 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



election; nor will bluff and bluster give the 
assurance and bring together the forces 
necessary to carry it for us, any more than 
they did in 1894. 

8. A LOST BATTLE. 

The election was lost then, not because of 
any change in the convictions or accepted 
principles of voters, but because of disobe- 
dience of orders and broken promises and vio- 
lated instructions on the part of party offi- 
cials; because of a failure to "Hew to the 
Line" as demanded by the ranks and promised 
by their leaders. Diminished confidence in 
those who have controlled party policy was 
the result; and a diminished confidence pro- 
duced a diminished vote. Until this-diminish- 
ed confidence is restored, and the influences 
that produced it nullified, in every move they 
make the Populists start with the chances 
against them. There are too many men 
whose support they need and have relied on. 
— whom bluster will not disturb nor bluff 
convince, who are too dissatisfied with the 
methods and practices, as well as the pur- 
pose of the old parties they have abandoned 
to seek something better, to be pacified with the 
assurance that their new home and surround- 
ings are no worse. 

9. WILL WE WIN THE NEXT. 

The purpose of the Reformers must be 
not only to advocate such a complete revo- 
lution in the whole policy of government as 
is necessary to re-establish a government of 
the people, and to faithfully execute this pur- 
pose whenever public confidence in their in- 
tegrity and approval of their plans gives 
them the opportunity; but the practice in 
party manipulation, the tact ^'s in the school 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 33 

of the party, must be an improvement on the 
spectacular evolutions, the boomerang- twirl - 
ings and the mortiferous clang of the old 
party machines. 

How shall the confidence, not of the bum- 
mers and foragers in the rear, but of the 
steady and conservative and reliable advance 
guard of Reformers be restored? By aband- 
oning the methods and practices that have 
destroyed it By showing a purpose to de- 
serve it. Bij Hewing to the Line. 

10. A TALK TO THE JURY. 

The arena of politics is not a battle field 
where cheating is justifiable and deception 
an honor. It is where conflicting policies of 
government should meet in open rivalry to 
be honestly explained and fairly presented to 
an interested and intelligent jury, for in- 
spection and dissection, to establish the best. 
While, under the leadership of men who 
practice what they preach and have lost no 
campaign or position by the activity of their 
moral natures, it has degenerated to a 
scramble for office and a greedy struggle for 
the spoils, this degenerated condition is not 
satisfactory to the mass of voters in any 
party. In the two great old parties, the ma- 
jority of voters acquiesce in what they really 
dislike and condemn, because this class in 
each, thinks the defeat of their party would 
be a worse evil than all the deception, wire 
pulling, chicanery and intrigue practiced to 
prevent it; and so they vote for a bad man, 
big Indian or good devil without regret. 
That is their primary theory which ultimately 
becomes an idolatry; luring them to first 
bow, then kneel, then wallow to serve this 
dirty and seductive god of partyism. 



34 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

Politics is a wallow; and partyism is a 
national curse that has made some of the 
worst blotches on our history. It cultivates 
deception, condones iniquity, and encourages 
the most degenerate forms of ignorance and 
the lowest shades of prejudice. 

All crimes are committed; all iniquities. de- 
fended; all honor cast aside; all laws defied; 
the reasonable impulses of humanity seared, 
and everything infamous and dishonorable 
upheld; everything mean and despicable, 
everything low and cowardly and' sneaking' 
applauded, and everything honorable and 
fair and true defamed in behalf of party. If 
there is anything that is the complete antithesis of 
statesmanship it is partyism, a seedling of j><<- 
ganism propagated in the gutter. The older and 
stronger a party gets, the more audacious 
and corrupt it becomes, until the rights and 
duties of the individual and the welfare of 
the Nation are lost sight of in the grand 
rush for the boodle at the goal. It would be a 
blessing to the nation if the life of a party 
were limited by charter, to a score of years 
or less. Then men would inevitably learn 
how much evil and injustice they had been 
voting to defend; and how little of patriotism 
and how much of selfish ambition was the 
mainspring of every party plan. 

11. HEWING TO THE LINE. 

The People's party as a whole abhor the 
methods and juggling of the old party 
machines. They denounce and ridicule the 
celebrated theory of our able ex-Senator 
whose experience seems to have established 
as an axiom of his political philosophy, that 
intrigue and corruption are essential to 
political success. The promise of the Re- 
formers is to discard intrigue and the noxious 



HEW TO THE LINE THEN AND NOW. 35 

methods of old party rings; and they generally 
demand that the reprehensible practices of 
these old parties be not grafted on the new. 
Had this demand been obeyed, the party 
would not have been groping its way in dis- 
order to-day. 

However gratifying success may be they 
do not believe in the Ingall's doctrine of 
reaching it by showing how little they de- 
serve it. Those who have accepted respons- 
ibility and position from the People's party 
to a great extent manipulate its policy and 
control its every move. To be able to call to 
their aid the forces necessary to enable them 
to repeal vicious laws, and supplant with 
representatives of intelligent labor the 
money changers and speculators who control 
the councils of the nation, they should not 
only be above reproach but above suspicion. 
It is not enough to say or to be able to prove 
that the new party is not as corrupt as the 
old. The old parties make no serious pre- 
tense of frowning on corruption. They glory 
in the opportunities it gives them, and follow 
the victories they win thereby with their 
favorite species of triumph. They eat, drink 
and get merry over what they have done. 

People expect something better of Re- 
formers. They expect them to "Hew to the 
Line" as they promise. If they have had op- 
portunities to do this that they have discarded. 
and chances to prove their fidelity that they 
have spurned, they must look to these short 
comings for the loss of enthusiasm and con- 
fidence and for recent disappointments and 
present disorder. 

That such opportunities have come within 
their reach and that they have not been ac- 
cepted are facts too well known to be denied. 



36 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

The important questions now are, first: Is 
the party bearing the blame for these der- 
elections and bearing it justly, and hence 
liable to the penalties for important public 
duties ignored? or, second: Does the respons- 
ibility attach to individuals whom the party 
has honored, for a failure to do their part? 
My belief is that the party is being criticised, 
censured and condemned for things the 
whole responsibility for which belongs to, 
and all blame for which should rest 01^ its 
appointed servants and chosen representa- 
tives. No party can be justly condemned, or 
even honestly censured, for either the bad 
judgment or the deliberate fault of its ser- 
vants which it has had no opportunity to con- 
demn, and of which the rank and file know 
too little to form an intelligent opinion. 

12. A STEADFAST PURPOSE. 

The purpose of the People's party remains 
as steadfast as it was before the election of 
1892 to avoid all entangling alliances, and the 
devious ways, the wire pulling tricks and 
bulldozing practices of the old parties; but 
they cannot shun what they but dimly see, 
nor intelligibly analyze and label rumors or 
insinuations, to give a proper influence in the 
formation of opinion and passing judgment, to 
the stories on which they are based. More 
light is the need of the hour. More light 
that they may see to hew to the line. 

Those who have accepted responsibility 
and position from the People's party will not 
do their part toward the re-establishment of 
that confidence which is essential to success 
in the coining campaign, if they fail to un- 
cover such specific and successful efforts to 
follow the ward heelers tactics and resorts to 
the reprehensible practices of the old parties 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 37 

as have been met in their personal experience, 
and had an important influence in promoting 
the disorder in our ranks, that the party may 
show their abhorrence and condemnation of 
these exhibitions of cake walks after false 
gods, and assist in the restoration of confi- 
dence both in the righteous purpose and the 
good judgment of those whom they may call 
to direct its policy and execute its decrees. 

13 A WARNING TORPEDO. 

Anything that will help to keep the Popu- 
list craft from drifting into the breakers, 
anything that will help us to shake off our 
stupor, to revive enthusiasm and restore con- 
fidence should be willingly contributed. Un- 
less we have the courage, the judgment and 
the statesmanship required for this emerg- 
ency, we cannot claim to have the qualifi- 
cations necessary to turn the prow of our 
Ship of State from the breakers, or expect 
the recruits necessary to give us the oppor- 
tunity to show our skill and to make the de- 
tails for the quarter deck. Let us not hesi- 
tate then to lay a warning torpedo in the 
track of the Populist. If at the same time we 
can show that while our side has in some 
instances failed to keep its pledges; if we can 
show that while our trusted and faithless 
servants have occasionally "followed the de- 
vices and desires" that only become the dis- 
ciples of political iniquity; and that, even in 
dealing with the great corporations who ex- 
pect and intend to derive the greater benefit 
from the public revenues while evading as 
far as possible the taxes that produce them, 
they have forgotten their pledges, forgotten 
the interest of the state and the claims of 
justice, — our opponents have shown their 
vassalage to these petted and domineering 



38 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

creatures of the law, not only by sustaining 
and endorsing the most serious Populist faults 
and errors in unauthorized concessions to at 
least one of the great corporations, but by 
adding still more to this wrong, and enlarg- 
ing the favoritism by a further release from 
their public burdens to increase the load on 
other interest, we will demonstrate to our 
crafty adversories the greater opportunity 
that they have of calling their faithless ser- 
vants to account for their more brazen subserv- 
ience to flu 1 outrageous claims <>f the Santa Fe 
company. 

1-4 NO TRIPLE ALLIANCE FOR REFORMERS. 

Whenever this overpowering and seeming- 
ly fascinating corporation can, with the Re- 
publican party and the Populist party, form 
a "triple alliance" for the purpose of defraud- 
ing all other interests save those of this com- 
pany, and for suppressing the evidence of 
questionable concessions to it, the evidence 
without doubt will remain intra parictes, or in 
the shade. But it takes three parties to 
form a triple alliance: and it requires the 
presence and sanction of authorized agents in 
so important a matter as that referred to, to 
bind the principals. 

The weak part in the chain of diplomacy is 
the fact thai the Populists ore not a party to the 
coalition. What ever their officials or servants 
may have promised, or done, or failed to do, 
was not only without authority, but in dis- 
obedience of orders, and the Populist party re- 
jects the bribe. Though through Populist folly 
a great wrong has been done, it was the folly 
of individuals whose sinuous course and old 
party tactics the party itself has had no op- 
portunity to either approve, whitewash, or 
condemn. The party should not and really 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 39 

cannot be held responsible for the duplicity 
of its servants unless it endorses or hides 
their dubious tricks. 

The release from reasonable and proper 
public burdens of the Santa Fe company was 
not granted by a Populist board, but was 
done after the board had completed their 
work and adjourned sine die, and turned over 
the minutes of their proceedings to their sec- 
retary to be figured and footed, and the neces- 
sary returns sent to the counties and com- 
panies. 

15. THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 

Not so with the Republicans. What they 
have done in endorsing the changes made in 
the Populist board's figures they have done 
as an official board; and the greater favors 
shown the Santa Fe company, than the 
ceived by the changes made in the Populist 
board's figures after they had adjourned, were 
granted by the present board in their official 
capacity, and with the facts before them. 

Either through carelessness or a lack of 
judgment, the Populist Senate permitted the 
opportunity to say whether or not they rati- 
fied the coalition between Populist officials, 
the Republican party and the Santa Fe com- 
pany to pass by. They rejected the oppor- 
tunity to make a record for the information of 
the public; of the work of this heterogeneous 
cabal. While in this failure, thej T made a 
serious mistake, this does not make the party 
responsible for the infamous favors shown 
by its appointees to the Santa Fe Co. , or for 
their successful efforts in suppressing the 
evidence of their doings. It was this care- 
lessness or lack of judgment which seemed to 
sanction the doctored assessors report of 1894 
that gave the new administration the oppor- 



40 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



tunity of granting greater favors to the Santa 
Fe company than they obtained by the sur- 
reptitious work on that report after the 
board had adjourned. Had it not been for 
the belief that the unauthorized concessions 
granted this company by Populist officials, 
and the refusal of the Senate to turn on the 
light, indicated a strong enough power 
among Populist wire pullers to force an en- 
dorsment of this triple alliance, does any one 
believe the Republican party would have 
dared to not only uphold and approve this 
enormous and unauthorized favoritism, but 
to show their infatuation and servility by 
still greater concessions to this then bank- 
rupt corporation that as yet makes no pre- 
tense of owning any state government but 
that of Kansas'? 

16 BLIND WATCHMEN TO RETIRE. 

Kansas has been making history in the past 
four years as rapidly as did the pioneers of 
forty years ago. The Populist party have 
contributed their share in this, without doing 
all they should have done with the oppor- 
tunities they have had. For what they have 
accomplished under trying circumstances and 
in spite of the multitudinous obstacles with 
which a snarling, unscrupulous and baffled 
opposition has attempted to surround or en- 
trap them, they are entitled to the lasting 
gratitude of the whole people. It would be 
strange if a force so suddenly recruited — so 
largely made up of comparative strangers — 
should under the most favorable circum- 
stances, accomplish as much as they hoped 
to, or that they would move forward with 
the quiet assurance of disciplined veterans. 
It was inevitable that they should miscalcu- 
late and misjudge; that they should straggle 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 41 

and grumble even on trivial occasions, that 
they should make mistakes. It is no less cer- 
tain that as a party, they are ready to retrace 
their steps, and to call down faithless guides, 
imcompetent, leaders short sighted lookouts 
and color-blind watchmen whenever their 
errors are revealed or their defects exposed. 
Nor is it less sure that a rugged road and a 
brief and stormy experience have qualified 
and fitted them to grapple with the serious 
questions that confront the people of the 
state and the nation. 

17. CORRECTING THE RECORDS TO 
"HEW TO THE LINE." 

Two or three events during my connection 
with the state government, in which I was 
personally interested, require for the good of 
the party and the cause of justice to be bet- 
ter understood. Some who have scored for 
me to hew have been displeased and disap- 
pointed that my blade failed to follow the 
wind and wobble of their scoring and they 
have used the opportunities given them by 
their positions as servants of the party to 
encourage and support false impressions and 
erroneous conclusions. These are matters in 
which not only the Populist party but the 
whole people of the state are interested. 
The part I have taken with reference to 
these transactions and events having been 
misunderstood, my purpose at times misrep- 
resented, and my reasonable requests as a 
state officer denied, I should culpably ignore 
the instructions I have received toassistthe Pop- 
ulists to hen: to the line, if I did not help them to 
reach conclusions on these matters not wholly 
based on the sly insinuations or garbled allega- 
tions of those interested in keeping the facts 
in the back ground, or on the ex parte state- 
ments of Populist fixers or railroad lobbyists. 



42 GUTTING THE GORMAN KNOT. 

In doing my part in turning on the light to 
enable the Populist party to see the breakers 
ahead, and the wake — the foot prints and 
earmarks of the wire pullers and fixers be- 
hind. I shall confine myself to matters that 
have been part of my personal experience; 
matters which interest not the party alone, 
but the whole people and which I learn are 
neither fairly stated by some of my self ap- 
pointed critics, nor generally understood by 
my friends. Misunderstanding and a lack of 
information, concerning these matters have 
been a detriment to the party, and in doing 
my part to aid in correcting them I can do no 
less than make the evidence in reference to 
these matters sufficiently plain to remove 
this mischevious misunderstanding. 

"I must be cruel only to be kind." 

1 la i„ict, Act IIT, Scene IV. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 
To silence* envious tongues. Be just and fear not: 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy countrys, 
Thy God's and truths." 

Henry VIII, Act ITT, Scene II. 

18. KANSANS TO THE FRONT. 

Men of Kansas! We must throw off our 
stupor and cast aside the chalice of our 
idolatry. We must throw ourselves "Once 
more into the breach," to stop the march of 
the present co-operating twin relics of 
barbarism and rescue the Republic. The op- 
portunity is again ours. We havq^jracries 
of the down trodden and oppressed 1|||||p on 
every breeze from North, South, Wsk and 
West to aid us in throwing off our apathy, 
and to incite us to emulate the noble and 
historic deeds of our predecessors; to incite 
us to cast to the winds the chalice of our 
superstition and rend the vestments of our 
idolatry. A thousand times more than forty 
years ago when 



HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 4-> 

"Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air," — 

A thousand times more than when 

"She placed in Kansas' outstretched hand 
The symbol of her chosen land," 

have we the opportunity to break the spell 

of the Golden calf, to light the funeral pyre 

of Plutocracy's bastile, and set up again the 

Ark of the Covenant in its ashes? Then it 

was but a handful of hardy and adventurous 

spirits who gathered here to defy the mighty 

slave power of the South backed by the 

Federal government. 

They had the sympathy of but a bare 

majority at the North when they turned their 

cabins into castles to face the onslaught 

from the South. In the marshaling of the 

forces for the coming struggle we have the 

full but undirected sympathy of a majority at 

the North that will ultimately become our 

allies, and we also have the chance to call to 

our aid the valiant and oppressed men of 

the South. It is for us to say, by acts rather 

than words, whether we have the brawn and 

the patriotism to improve it. 



44 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 



The Sunflower Tangle and Its Critics, 



CHAPTER III. 

Contents: 1. A Surprise. 2. Political Chaperones 
and the Independent Press. 3. Personal In- 
terest Ignored. 4. A Reasonable Expectation. 
5. Some Strong Endorsements. 6. Features of 
the Bill. 7. The Suffragists Win — and Lose. 
8. ALuckyMistake(?). 9. The National Outlook. 
10. Build a Calf. 11. Side Issues of '96. 12 The 
Great Questiou of the Present. 13 Why the ad- 
dress to the Convention of '94. 14. My Purpose 
in Untangling the "Tangle " 15. The Pledge to 
Move Forward 16 Kansas Takes the Initiative. 
17. Striking Conditions Summarized. 18. But 
one Peaceable Corrective Possible. 19. Ameri- 
can's not Made for the Constitution. 20. God's 
Law still in Force. 21. Mathematics and Cy- 
clones. 22. Amusing the Thieves; Stop It! 

23. Taxing a Luxury to Enforce God's Law. 

24. If not as Purifying as the Sword, Still Good 
Enough for us. 

1. A SURPRISE. 

'HE appearance of "TJie Sunflower Tangle" 
on the eve of the meeting of our State 
Convention two years ago, created universal 
surprise throughout the State. While there 
was a strong desire among a few of the 
"fixers" of the party to find some excuse for 
booming a new candidate for Lieutenant 
Governor, on account of my failure to partici- 
pate in their projects and second all their 
motions, their expressions of dissatisfaction 
had been confined to an occasional subdued 
growl, and it was conceded, as there was no 
plausible excuse for a change, I would be re- 
nominated with the major part of the ticket. 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. !."< 

The appearance however of my printed ad- 
dress to the delegates just before the meet- 
ing gave my opponents a position on which 
to mass their batteries. 

2. POLITICAL CHAPERONES AND THE INDE- 

PENDENT (?) PRESS. 

My experience at that time shows the 
danger of incurring the displeasure o f the 
party fixers. Had I fully realized this before 
the address was issued, the "Sunflower Tangle" 
would have been written and sent to the dele- 
gates just the same; but I should have had it 
out in time for them to have learned what it 
said without the aid of a chaperone, that its 
object might not have been misunderstood, 
nor my purpose successfully misrepresented. 

It came out but a few days before the con- 
vention met and was received by but few be- 
fore they left their homes. 

The independent press — independent of 
any veneration for the truth as such — with 
their usual willingness to promote discord in 
Populist ranks, gave a sufficient twist to its 
statements to boom the schemes of the w T ire 
workers whose 'claim that the lieutenant 
governor was trying to dictate the platform, 
enable them to carry their point. I was cen- 
sured, not only by those who became open 
enemies for w T hat they called an arbitrary pur- 
pose, but by my friends for giving the former 
a foothold. Friends have wondered and 
asked, they have imagined, surmised, queried 
and guessed to learn my motive. They have 
assigned various reasons, but none have di- 
vined the full motive and purpose of "The 
Sunflower Tangle." 

3. PERSONAL INTEREST IGNORED. 

As I had never bought political honors or 
lobbied at conventions in hopes of a reward. 
the address was not classed as designed for a 



46 CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 

personal benefit. So far, critics were right. 
My own interest or desires were not con- 
sidered. "The Sunflower Tangle" dealt with 
great national questions, without the slightest 
consideration of individual ambition, interests 
or preferences. The expectation was that 
the importance of the main proposition it 
contained, — that for the recognition of the 
principle of Graduated Property Taxation in 
the platform --if concurred in by the con- 
vention, w T ould be developed by the discussion 
that would inevitably have followed its 
adoption. Had the measure been endorsed, 
and its working when enacted become under- 
stood by campaign discussions, the Populist 
nominees would have swept the state. How 
small then appears the efforts of the cabal 
whose members or agents meandered between 
the hotels and the depots to interview dele- 
gates and cram them with pointers about one 
man's efforts to dictate a platform. 

4. A REASONABLE EXPECTATION. 

Certainly there were substantial grounds 
for the belief that the measure would receive 
thoughtful examination from the convention. 
It had many friends and supporters among 
the delegates, and in addition to this fact, it 
had received the endorsement of representa- 
tive bodies enough in the state to have in- 
sured under ordinary circumstances, not 
only its consideration but its recognition as a 
party measure. The suggestions in the "Sun- 
flower Tangle" were also made in compliance 
with an invitation in the Omaha platform, ex- 
tended to all Populists to aid in the formula- 
tion of amendments to that document, which, 
conceding it was not complete, promised that 
the forces there organized "would never cease 
to move forward until every wrong is 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 47 

righted. " This latter fact should have been 
sufficient to annul the charge of presumption 
used by my critics had their first consideration 
been that of party welfare for the public good, 
without the endorsements the measure had 
received. 

5 SOME STRONG ENDORSEMENTS. 

But in addition to this invitation in the 
platform, the measure at that time had re- 
ceived the approval of 

The Kansas Alliance in 1889, 

The Crawford County Peoples Party con- 
vention of 1891. 

My nomination for lieutenant governor in 
1892 was a result of my advocacy and defense 
of this measure. 

The Kansas Senate, after an all-day debate 
on Feb. 10th, 1893, passed a concurrent reso- 
lution (No. 15) as follows (Preamble omitted) : 

" Resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the 
House of representatives concurring therein, that 
our Senators in Congress be instructed and our Rep- 
resentatives be requested to use their influence and 
votes for the purpose of procuring the passage of 
the said bill, House — No. 6595. 

Rexolced, That a copy of this preamble and these 
resolutions be sent to the President of the Senate 
and Speaker of the House, to each of the Kansas 
delegation in Congress and to the presiding officer of 
every State Senate in the Nation." 

The resolution was adopted without di- 
vision after its opponents had exhausted par- 
liamentary tactics to defeat a vote. On a roll 
call on the resolution without the preamble, 
the vote would have stood: For it 27, Against 
13. *It went to the Dunsmore House Feb. 
13th, was referred to the committee on Fed- 
eral Relations, reported back Feb. 17th and 
concurred in without opposition Feb. 21st. 
The friend-; of the measure comprised a 

*S*e Senate Journal pages 253, 297. 312. 13. 14, 15: And Duns- 
more House Journal pp. 263, 298, 310. 



48 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

majority of the Kansas Legislature after the 
Supreme Court decision had brought the 
two hostile wings together and the Republi- 
cans had completed their program of unseat- 
ing Populist members. 

6. FEATURES OF THE BILL. 

H. R. 6595 was the Graduated Property Tax 
Bill which I drew up in February, 1892, and 
Representative Clover introduced on the 27th 
of that month. The same bill was introduced 
in the Senate by Mr. Peffer, being bill No. 
2615 of the Senate Series. It provides: 

First. For a tax of from one to eighteen 
per cent, per annum, on the property in excess 
of $1,000,000 owned by any one person. 

Second. That the funds raised by it should 
be apportioned among the states; one-third in 
proportion to their wealth; one-third in pro- 
portion to their population; and one-third in 
proportion to their area. 

Third. That the money should be expended 
(after paying from it the cost of assessment 
and collection) for three specific purposes, as 
follows: 

First: For paying the pensions and other 
war charges. 

Second: For employing all idle labor on ex- 
tensive public improvements in every organ- 
ized county of the country, in building and 
improving roads, canals, reservoirs and parks. 

Third: For paying all the expenses of the 
state military establishments. 

The bill was again sent to Congress in the 
summer of 1893 and my petition for its passage 
was approved, and endorsed by the executive 
officers of the state from the Governor down. 

As the request for the consideration of the 
measure was made in compliance with an 
invitation extended by our National platform ; 
and with so generous a backing as the propo- 



THE SUNFLOWER TANC.LEAND ITS CRITICS. 4!) 

sition had received, would it have been reas- 
onable to expect that its deliberate consider- 
ation could have been defeated by the most 
energetic efforts of a small but mighty band 
of wire pullers on the flimsy pretext that I was 
trying to dictate the platform? I think not. 
Under the circumstances it was reasonable 
to expect that my position would ' be neither 
misrepresented or misunderstood. In com- 
pliance with the invitation of our national 
platform I asked our convention to accept the 
Graduated Property Tax — a measure which 
had received the endorsement of their Legis- 
lature and State Officers — as a substitute for 
the Sub-treasury Bill. I felt satisfied that the 
deliberate judgment of the party's represent- 
atives was in favor of the measure, though 
they might not be convinced of the propriety 
of its adoption at that time; and so the expect- 
ation that my appeal would be considered 
without listening to the chatter of the "states- 
men four", was neither presumptious nor un- 
reasonable. 

7. THE SUFFRAGISTS WIN — AND LOSE. 

There were soni9 mitigating circumstances 
in connection with the action of the com- 
mittee on resolutions. They permitted the 
women suffragists to monopolize almost the 
entire time given to the consideration of 
platform, incluling all the day (after their 
appointment) and much of the night; becoming 
so exhilerated and then dazed and finally worn 
out by the logic, facts and millinery, that 
when they awoke from their dreams in which 
they seemed to have been '"Fighting like fiends 
for conciliation" they voted to report against 
the weight of the evidence and flutter of rib- 
bons; then the convention reversed them. 
and later the people sustained the committee. 



50 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

Another unfortunate circumstance was 
that I was in such poor health at that time as 
to be unable to be out in the evening; and 
when the committee had heard the long story 
of the suffragists through, they were so 
nearly fagged out and I was not present to 
defend the # graduated tax proposition that 
they rejected it after a little superficial com- 
ment and casual consideration. The conven- 
tion reversed the committee on what the com- 
mittee evidently considered the more im- 
portant measure, but on the same crafty argu- 
ment that prejudiced and prevailed with the 
committee, they accepted the latters conclu- 
sions on the tax question. Defeat followed. 
Why. has already been considered. 

8. A LUCKY MISTAKE(?) 

Had this measure been included in the 
platform, its discussion would have drawn 
attention somewhat from the errors of our 
administration, and brought to their aid 
friends of the measure, some of whom did not 
vote, and some voted other tickets. Six 
weeks after the convention and but three 
weeks before he died, ex-Governor Robinson, 
who believed that success under then exist- 
ing conditions was absolutely impossible, 
w T rote me as follows: 

"If the book (meaning the Sunflower Tn?igle^ and 
other arguments in support of the measure it de- 
fended) could be endorsed by the Populist party as a 
campaign document and distributed by the com- 
mittee and candidates, success would be assured." 

The view of Governor Lewelling expressed 

in a letter to me dated Nov. 13th, 1894, in 

which he said, "lam inclined to think all is 

for the best. Our party will now be stripped of 

a number of spoils hunters,*' seems more and 

more the right one. We can safely say the 

errors of that campaign were our good 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 51 



fortune; as without the defeat, the faults of 
our administration could not have been cast 
in the shade by the follies, scandals, and 
dilly-dallying of our successors; and the 
venom of our disappointed adversaries would 
all the time have been spreading its poison, 
while the disintegrating influences of the 
spoils hunters among the Populists might 
have gone on till they reached among us, the 
pinnacle they now occupy in the Republican 
camp, and made success impossible this year. 
In Kansas we now have an opportunity that 
probably would not have been within our 
reach but for that defeat;— an opportunity to 
call out the former stay-at-home vote, absorb 
the Democratic kickers, and make a flying 
switch for the Republican land slide that will 
send the old party machine cavorting among 
a yard full of "empties." 

9. THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK. 

In the Nation the situation is changing so 
rapidly that with a judicious use of our op- 
portunities, success there also now looks 
possible. It was with National questions 
that the "Sunflower Tangle" dealt, and National 
success in 1896 was the object for which it 
was written; but at that time we all felt that 
success in Kansas in '94 would contribute to 
National victory in '96. Now the wisdom of 
that belief is not so apparent. But whatever 
influence that might have had, is immaterial 



now 



The campaign of '96 is upon us. The 
questions and conditions of '96 are here for 
us to grapple with, and to solve. The meas- 
ures advocated and defended in the Tangle 
are more pertinent now than in '94. and the 
necessity for such legislation is more readily 
discerned. In these two years the millionaire 



5? CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



anarchists have tightened the screws on the 
slaves. They have put in operation new 
schemes of plunder. They have taken a new 
mterest in sowing the seeds of our national 
paganism, that they may be adored as its- 
prophets. 

10 - BUILD A CALF. 

The great central principle of this creed 
teaches men that the one great duty of life is 
to build a Golden Calf. No matter how. just 
build it, There is nothing else to strive for 
on earth. Build a god and get into it. Then 
you can enjoy the worship of fools and the 
envy of the world. The more that are robbed 
for supplying the treasure, the greater will 
be your satisfaction. Build a palace. The 
more bones worked into the foundation, and 
tears in the mortar,— the more of labors homes 
made bare or destroyed in the effort, the 
greater your success. The more you can 
plunder in doing it the greater the glory. 
The more laborers that are thereby forced to 
dress in rags and live in squalor, the better. 
Spread inside a perpetual feast and fill the 
nights with revelry. The more empty plates 
and begging ones outside, the more you can 
enjoy the Calf. This is the great theory we 
are applauding the piratical schemers of the 
present time for following; the great lesson 
we have set for the rising generation to learn. 

11 ■ SIDE ISSUES OF '96. 

This species of paganism is the basis for 
the worst form of imperialism. Republican- 
ism does not and cannot share honors with it. 
The antipathy between them is vital and end- 
less. One or the other must go down. The 
question of '96 is. which. The free silver 
skirmish is only an incident(V) The tariff fake 
is now but an incident. The per capita circu- 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 53 

latioii has become but a feeble incident. 
When those who have, by opportunity, 
treachery, and favors gotten the property of 
the nation want free silver or no silver, high 
tariff or low, more money or less, these 
changes will be made in a night. 

The case is human rights versus money 
rights. Man versus dollars. The true God 
versus the Golden Calf. And men who are 
lured by the fallacious twitter of the cunning 
and corrupt servants of Plutocracy to ignore 
the great main question for the purpose of 
defending one side or the other of either of 
these incidental questions, had as well ex- 
haust their logic and expend their oratory to 
decide, as they gather around the Calf they 
worship, which their Aaron "fashioned with 
a graving tool after he had made it a Golden 
Calf* (Exodus xxxn, iv) whether the post of 
honor is the head or the tail. 

However important these questions of 
tariff and silver and circulation may have 
been in the past they have all become side 
issues. They have dwindled to insignificance 
now the wrongs that have been perpetrated 
by a barbaric use of the opportunities their 
discussion and manipulation has given the 
"confidence" gang, are realized; and the 
question of human rights versus money rights 
is the one great question now before the jury 
of 12,000,000 men. 

12. THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE PRESENT. 

The "Sunfloiver Tangle," while addressed to 
the state convention, had no reference in its 
purpose to state politics. The measure it 
specifically advocated was drafted for the 
double purpose of again making the industrial 
classes prosperous, independent and content- 



54 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

ed; and for outlining a plan which the plun- 
dered masses, North and South, would be- 
mutually interested in pushing to success. 
A plan 

Of co-operation for saving the Nation, 

Of the bold Johnny Rebs and the brave Billy Yanks. 

It was intended as an effort first, to re-estab- 
lish the rule of justice by overturning the 
Golden Calf, destroying monopoly, and restor- 
ing to the victims of its greed and lust its 
concentrated forces; and second, to insure the 
mustering of a force of patriots sufficient to> 
carry out the first purpose. 

The first purpose was apparent to the casual 
reader; but the second, though the general 
features of the project had been published 
hundreds of times, discussed and debated 
occasionally for years by reformers, and crit- 
icised, berated and lampooned by its oppo- 
nents, the important points in the details of 
the project, by which 

The Brigadier's of labors legions 
Called from North and Southern regions, 
Could call down the tyrant and twist the spine 
Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks, 

had not been discovered or disclosed. 

13. WHY THE ADDRESS TO THE CONVEN- 
TION OF '94, 

In asking the convention to sustain the 
action of the Populist legislature and state 
officers, my wish was that there might be 
ample time for these features of the measure 
to be discussed and understood, and its far- 
reaching effects be realized before the cam- 
paign of this year began. But the mastodons 
of political intrigue and pigmies of states- 
manship, in prancing through the corridors 
and meandering to the stations were able to 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 55 

burn brimstone enough about the Sunflower 
Tangle so that its contents could not be dis- 
cerned or its meaning realized on account of 
the smoke and the fumes. 

14. MY PURPOSE IN UNTANGLING THE 
TANGLE. 

It is due to these wary and successful oppo- 
nents of my request contained therein, to the 
convention of two years ago, that they knew 
how much of a detriment, even when judged 
by the supple touch-stone of expediency, their 
action was to the cause they support. It is 
due to the disconcerted friends in Kansas of 
graduated taxation, to know how little con- 
sideration for the public good flavored the 
inuendoes or spiced the councils of those who 
then appeared as enemies of this project. And 
it is due to the people of the state to realize 
and understand how little of public welfare or 
the interest of the community, — how little of 
the true spirit of statesmanship imparts any 
flavor to political intrigues; to know how 
much of its crust is petty jealousies; how much 
of its filling is loaves and fishes, and how 
much of its spice is selfish and pernicious 
ambitions. 

The cultivation of these abnormal and mis- 
chievous characteristics, is one of the leading 
arts in our political life. The ability of men 
who depend on their use to attract attention, 
and command the support of others who 
detest deception and intrigue, is one of the 
unfortunate and mysterious circumstances of 
American politics. Those who look at the 
back of the mask the mandarins of this order 
of Mamalukes wear as they meander and 
prance and plead to auction off their favors, 
see it is but a filmy texture of deceit. Culti- 
vating these traits so industriously year after 



56 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

year, has finally made the greatest emulation 
between political parties, the emulation of 
fraud. The dangers that beset us now, not 
only invite and entreat us, but they command 
us to so modify our methods and harmonize 
our purposes with the grand designs on the 
first trestle board of the Republic, that the 
jealousies and acrimony of the partisian may 
be covered by the toga of the statesman. 

My purpose in untangling The Sunflower Tan- 
gle will be to show friends and enemies what 
it meant, and what opportunities the project 
it advocates offers to the victims of our new 
system of slavery, to escape from an odious 
bondage, and repossess their lost heritage by 
utilizing an underground railroad, the plans 
and profiles of which are on record therein; 
an .underground railroad with a certainty of 
operation and capacity of service equal to the 
work of carrying the last one of the slaves of 
to-day, from the bondsman's bare hut back to 
the freeman's home. 

In doing this, it is with a hope that the 
knowledge of what it did mean, will so 
nearly compensate the wire pullers that were 
able to defeat its earnest and thoughtful con- 
sideration, aside from the question of offices 
and plums, that they as victors will ask no 
indemnity ; but accept instead, the opportunity 
it gives them for extending the field of their 
labors in the political arena, beyond the nar- 
row confines of political intrigue to balance 
the account. 

15. THE PLEDGE TO MOVE FORWARD. 

The Omaha platform pledges the party to 
continue to move forward till every wrong is 
righted. Plundering the masses to enrich the 
classes is the greatest wrong existing in 
America in 1896. This is one of the wrongs 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. D( 

the Populist party is pledged to correct, but 
the Omaha convention failed to find any one 
project, or any assortment of projects that 
would do this, on which a majority could agree. 

16. KANSAS TAKES THE INITIATIVE. 

As Kansas has headed the Populist column, 
it is but natural that we should take the in- 
itiative in agreeing on some project that would 
supply this deficiency. The bill which was 
petitioned for by the Populist state officers 
and endorsed by a Populist Legislature in 
Senate Concurrent resolution No. 15 three 
years ago, is such a measure. It received the 
sanction of the Populist Senate after an all- 
day debate because it was such a measure: 
And it received the endorsement without de- 
veloping the strongest features in the bill for 
disarming Plutocracy. Before proceeding 
-with a consideration of these special points, 
let us pause to summarize the conditions that 
require the immediate application of radical 
remedies. 

17. STRIKING CONDITIONS SUMMARIZED. 

A rough estimate of the nation's wealth is 
$65,000,000,000. 

Fifty per cent, of this property is owned by 
less than 23,000 persons, or one one-thirtieth 
of one per cent, of the people. 

Thirty per cent, more of it is owned by 
about 122,00J persons, and fifteen per cent, 
more by about 155,000 persons. 

So ninety-five per cent, of our accumulated 
wealth is held by 300,000 persons. 

Most of these accumulations are the result 
of corrupt processes, unholy methods and 
unjust legislation. 

Most of this wealth has been produced by 
the 'ninety -nine per cent, of the families of the 
nation who still retain 5 per cent, of its wealth. 



58 PUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

All the destitution, present hard times, lack 
of work, and discontent; and most of the 
crimes committed and the cost of finding 'and 
punishing violators of criminal laws, are a 
result of these unjust conditions and of the 
opportunities they offer, and the power they 
give for their extension. 

18. BUT ONE PEACEABLE CORRECTIVE 
POSSIBLE. 

The only possible way to either stop their growth 
or to undo the wrongs we have permitted to 
grow till they have enslaved the masses and 
threaten, as they ought, the life of the 
Republic, is to destroy the power of the men 
who own the accumulated forces of money for 
continuing their work: their power to hold the 
battle-ax of starvation over the heads of labor. 

We cannot by peaceable methods destroy 
their power to do this without increasing the 
ability of labor to resist it. 

We cannot decrease the offensive armament 
of the capitalist, without increasing the de- 
fensive position of the laborer. 

We cannot make restitution to labor for the 
wrongs of the past without a re-adjustment of 
economic condition and opportunities, that 
Avill restore to the laborer, a part, at least, of 
that which he has earned and lost because 
the government of a republic,- — of this Republic 
— has for a third of a century constantly aided 
his oppressors, 

Taxation is the only peaceable process by 
which a re-adjustment of economic conditions 
can be reached , or by which the power of capital 
to continue its barbarities can be destroyed. 

Taxation is the only avenue through which 
the plunder now in the pockets of the multi- 
millionaires can be collected for restoration to 
its risrhtful owners. 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS ")i> 

19. AMERICANS NOT MADE FOR THE 

CONSTITUTION. 

If a constitutional prohibition of such a 
process has been recently discovered or in- 
vented, we must admit, that, as the constitu- 
tion was drawn to administer justice and not 
to enforce injustice, our duty requires its 
amendment. "The Sabbath was made for 
man, and not man for the Sabbath.*' The 
Constitution was made for Americans, and 
not Americans for the Constitution. It is not 
strange that men 110 years ago were not able 
to quite make it fit our present conditions; 
but they told us how to proceed to supply its 
deficiencies — as we have done several times 
already — or to make a new one. 

20. GOD'S LAW STILL IN FORCE. 

The most, if not the only, available methods 
of restoring this plunder to the masses, are: 
First, through its expenditure in the employ- 
ment of all idle labor, at good wages on public 
works, and in the purchase of supplies, 
material, and sites therefor. Second, by de- 
creasing the burden of present taxation. 

This will not only start a process of com- 
pensation to all present idle laborers, but at 
the same time it will begin making restitution 
to all other labor by increasing wages; by 
stopping taxes for the support of the idle. 
and by decreasing the cost of the criminal 
classes; besides a decrease of taxation for the 
regular appropriations of the National gov- 
ernment. 

The interests profiting by the reign o: in- 
justice claim that they have repealed God's 
law "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat 
bread/' which carries with it the right— the 
inalienable and inherent right — to an oppor- 
tunity to do this, and the right to live. 



60 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

This claim is a fraud and a lie. Their vicious 
use of boughten power has enabled them to 
close the book in which it is written, and 
render it inoperative; but the book will be 
reopened and this righteous decree again 
proclaimed from every house top, and the 
thunder of this message will shake the foun- 
dations of the palaces of those who protest 
and turn for consolation and aid to the frail 
god they have fashioned "with a graving 
tool." 

21. MATHEMATICS AND CYCLONES. 

The existence of these evidences of injus- 
tice, oppression and wrong, does not simply 
excuse a resort to positive and radical meas- 
ures for correcting them. The knowledge of 
these facts comes with the force of a com- 
mand to all honest people; and it is only the 
dishonest or the timid that will protest against 
again making dollars the servant of the 
people, instead of the people a servant of 
dollars. 

Most writers on these questions discern the 
cause of the wrong and draw vivid pictures of 
the situation. Some of them depict truthfully 
the inevitable result of the continued growth 
of the evil tendencies and pernicious condi- 
tions against which they protest, They 
lament it as men naturally do to find they are 
in the path of an approaching cyclone. When 
such a discovery is made they will not stop 
long to discuss how the cyclone was formed. 
Their interest and efforts will be directed to 
stopping it. 01 getting out of the way. 

Now the danger threatening our social 
system is seen, our efforts should be directed- 
to remedies and means of escape. 

The question is asked by those who rejoice 
in present conditions because they profit by 



THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AM) ITS CRITICS 61 

them, "What are you going to do about it"? 
The tired tramps, — the plundered producers, 
— the toiling industrialists,-- the weary 
workers say, "What can we do about it"? 

Do something. No matter if it is not the 
best. A coming cyclone won't wait for long 
mathematical calculations. A lighted fuse is 
not concerned about the distance to the 
powder chamber. Do something: then if that 
is not the best, do something else. Don't 
Wait for the fuse to burn out while trying to 
figure out the best. You had better do some- 
thing that is not the best than to do nothing. 
Then do something for your sake, for your 
children's sake, for justice and your country. 

22. AMUSING THE THIEVES, STOP IT! 

Taxation is our certain and available weap- 
on of defense. We certainly have a right to 
tax luxuries. All nations have, and we have 
enforced it when we chose. The precedents 
of a century show we hold this power. The 
voice of common sense commands us to use it. 
The voice of God approves the dictates of 
common sense. We are amusing the thieves 
by pelting them with clods. Stop it. Use the 
stones of taxation to call them doivn. Then you 
can discuss and dally over better ways. 

The taxation of income is childs play. In- 
ordinate wealth is a luxury. Tax inordinate 
wealth — the property itself — not the profit 
the plunderers can make by using it. 

If one million dollars is not inordinate 
wealth, two million is. If one million dollars 
is not a luxury, two millions are. Tax the 
second million. 

If one million is not a luxury, fifty are. 
Tax the forty -nine that you know make the 
fortune a luxury. If we err, let us err with 
too much generosity, but at the same time let 



62 CUTTING THE GORMAN KNOT. 



us say to the haughty Plutocrats; "We will 
not see the masses deprived of the ordinary 
comforts of life, and much less of its necessi- 
ties, for the sole purpose of having a few 
peacocks — of seeing you revel in luxury.'' 

Legislatures, Congress and the Courts are 
given their power by our votes. The}' are 
owned and operated by the Plutocrats. 
Turn the rascals out. Destroy the power of 
their masters to own them, by using the 
engine of taxation, and by imposing it in 
proportion to the ability to bear it; by gradu- 
ated taxation as recommended by the greatest 
statesman of our early history. Of our right 
to do this, Senator Sherman said during a 
debate over one of his compromising intrigues 
to protect the trusts: 

"Congress also has power to lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imports and excises. It may exercise its 
own discretion in acting upon this power. All 
parties, from the foundation of the government, 
have held that Congress may discriminate in select- 
ing the objects and rates of taxation." 

The right to tax what we please and at the 
rate we please has been so universally ad- 
mitted, that even Mr. Sherman makes no ef- 
fort to dispute it. And ex-Senator Ingalls 
adds his testimony as follows: 

"When the supreme court decided that taxation 
need not be for raising revenue, and that the power 
to tax was, under the constitution, the power to 
destroy, they placed in the hands of Lazarus a weap- 
on against which Dives has neither shield nor armor." 

23. TAXING A LUXURY TO ENFORCE GOD'S 
LAW. 

Let us, as urged by Jefferson, tax inordinate 
wealth because it is a luxury, and on account 
of its ability to bear it. 

Let us do this for the purpose of wiping 
out the crime of poverty and exterminating 
the sin of want. 



the suxf: ower tangle and its crittcs. 63 

Let us do this for the purpose of feeding 1 
the hungry, clothing the naked, and selling 
homes to the homeless. 

Let us do this that government may have 
all the money it requires to settle every 
reasonable account and claim of the late war, 
pensions included, without wringing it out of 
the laboring masses. 

In the great case pending, the factions sup- 
porting the two sides seem to wear the honors 
of independent cranks or cringing toadies. 
Let us who support the side of human rights 
and intend to uphold God's command, be 
cranks enough to act the part of men. Let 
us help to overturn the tables and disperse 
the councils of the money changers, and to 
scatter their superfluous and ill gotten dollars, 
by the silent and certain process of taxation 
and public expenditure. 

We have common sense enough to know 
that present conditions will not long continue, 
and continue to develop in a Republic. 
There has got to be a change. There will be 
a change. Let us concede that a readjust- 
ment through the taxing power is not the 
best way. One thing we know. It's action 
is positive. It's grip is relentless. It's call 
is certain. It can tap the "barrels" of the 
multi-millionaires as deftly as they have 
filled them; and with a spirit of charity, hu- 
manity, and philanthropy which they have 
never shown in their schemes to rob the 
masses. 

24. IF NOT AS PURIFYING AS THE SWORD, 
STILL, GOOD ENOUGH FOR US. 

It may not be as purifying or rejuvenating 
as the sword. Granted that it is not; it is 
good enough for us. Then let us adopt it 
and enforce it while statesmen are evolving 



64 CUTTING THE GORDIA.N KNOT. 

some better way, — turning over a new leaf in 
1896 that will restore to all law abiding 
American citizens an equal opportunity for 
the enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness. 

Let us speak in '96 "what we think in hard 
words, 1 ' and follow the light that we have in 
'96; that is, to take the most available path 
out of our present difficulties; holding our- 
selves ready to follow some better way when 
our present over- worked and not under-fed 
statesmen are able to show us the way to it; 
or when these sleek and crafty valets of 
Plutocracy are succeeded by men not shorn 
of the common instincts of humanity and the 
reasonable and righteous impulses of man- 
kind. 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 65 



The Tangle Untangled. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Contents: 1. Dissecting the Bill. 2. What it Meant. 
3. Who does it Tax? 4. How Much? 5. A Mild 
Cathartic. 6. By Birthright and Precedent Kan- 
sas Should Lead. 7. Diffusing the Plunder. 
8. How to do This. 9. Banishing Forced Idle- 
ness. 10. Maintaining the Militia. 11. Allotting 
the Readjusting Current. 12. Into the Pockets 
of Honest Labor. 13 Feasible, Just and Certain. 
14. As to the Union Soldier. 15 Lending Gold 
and Giving Manhood. 16. A New Party De- 
mands Justice for the Veteran. 17 Talmage on 
the Victors Return. 18. Grady on the Going of 
the Vanquished 19. Ex-Rebels and Reciprocity. 
20 The American Idea 21. Attack the Million- 
aires. 22 Lifting a Burden from the Shoulders 
of Labor. 23 Are you Ready for the Question? 
24 The Angel of Reciprocity. 25 As to the In- 
dustrial Classes. 26. Reviving God's Law. 

27. What say you, Brigadiers of Labor's Legions? 

28. Routing the Guerrillas of Plutocracy. 
29.. As to the Ex- Confederate. 30 Another 
Channel of Reciprocity. 31. How it Would 
Work. 32. The Sense in Reciprocity— the Non- 
sense in Animosity. 33. Let us Have Peace. 
34 Labor's Jubilee. 




DISSECTING THE BILL. 

RAVING noticed the surface conditions 
that appeals to every patriot and 
Christian for immediate and radical measures 
to change them, let us dissect the specific 
measure which the Pojiulist State Govern- 
ment of Kansas approved in 1893 and which 
has been four times introduced in Congress, — 



66 CUTTING TBE GORDIAN KNOT. 

first in February, 1892, and the last time 
May 1st, 1896, now standing on the calender 
as H. R. 8618, 1st S. 54th Congress. Origi- 
nally it was No. 6595 which was its number at 
the date of the action of the Kansas Legisla- 
ture. 

Let us examine this measure to see if it 
will correct some of the wrongs from which 
we as a people are suffering, and if it has the 
attributes that should commend it to the in- 
dustrial classes and draw from them sufficient 
support to ensure its enactment. Let us see 
what it meant when the Kansas Legisla- 
ture asked Congress to enact it, and 

2. WHAT IT MEANT 

When the writer asked the Kansas People's 
party convention to make room for it in their 
platform. 

The wisest or wickedest political conven- 
tion that ever convened in Crawford county, 
adopted, as part of their platform, Oct. 1st, 
1891, the following Resolution: 

Resolved, That we recommend the substitution 
of a Graduated Estate Tax for a graduated Income 
Tax in our National platform, the tax to begin at 
•$1,000,000. That estates in excess of one million and 
under two million dollars pay a one per cent, tax on 
the excess. Estates of from two to five million 
dollars pay a three per cent, rate on all above one 
million. Estates from five to ten million dollars, a 
rate of five per cent, additional, or eight per cent, 
on all above one million. And estates over ten 
million dollars ten per cent, more, or eighteen per 
cent, on all over one million dollars. 

H. R. 6595 of 1892 was drawn incompliance 
with the above resolution, and in addition to 
provisions for the assessment and collection 
of a graduated property tax annually, it pro- 
vided for paying all pensions and other war 
charges, employing all idle labor on public 
improvements and paying the cost of state 
military departments from this fund. 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED li, 

3. WHO DOES IT TAX? 

There are 10,000 persons in the United 
States who hold over $25,000,000,000 of our 
national accumulations, having from $1,000,- 
000 to $175,000,000, each This bill purposes 
to tax each one of them on what he has in 
excess of $1,000,000. Many of them have 
barely the round million. They would be 
exempt. This would reduce the number to be 
taxed to the vicinity of 8,500. 

There are 2.730 organized counties in the 
States, with an average population of 25,000. 
This project would tax an average of three 
persons in each 25,000, and commence a pro- 
cess of imposing taxes in proportion to the 
ability to pay it. 

Had this average of 24,997 persons in each 
county who would be benefited by this pro- 
ject to gradually re-establish justice, better 
wait before taking action, for the consent of 
the other three whose ideas of justice and 
right have been cultivated in the sajne way 
as was Mills* religion ? Shall we wait for the 
consent of the three before deciding to be 
just to the 24,977? We will if we have taken 
the side of those who demand the obliteration 
of God's law. 

4. HOW MUCH? 

It would collect from these 8,500 people 
whom we are protecting in the enjoyment of 
the luxury of inordinate wealth, and from a 
graduated tax on inheritances (begining a1 
$100,000) the sum of $2,033,000,000 the firsl 
year. 

5. A MILD CATHARTIC. 

When the strong arm of the governmenl 
reaches for $2,000,000,003 a year from the 
multi-millionaires, there will be no necessity 
for further dis sussion over percapita circula- 
tion, as those whose call at any time will be 



68 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



heeded will demand an increase. If the gov- 
ernment belongs irrevocably to the specified 
10,000 through the perfidy of men who are 
their political vassals, no effort will be made 
to replevin this plunder. The strong arm of 
government will continue to be directed to 
the oppression and impoverishment of 65,000- 
000 people for the further gratification and 
glory of our 10,000 millionaires. In that 
event the 65,CCO,0CO servants should con- 
tinue to wax eloquent and enthusiastic over 
local questions and side issues, like the tariff 
and "circulation." They should continue to 
spell at the wordsgiven out by the masters; — 
to discuss the questions furnished, and take 
their medicine as prescribed. If the govern- 
ment has not become the absolute and irretrievable 
servant of capital, the time, for the people to deny 
it, and to resume their inalienable rights, is in 
1896. The way to do this is to resume their 
prerogatives, and call down the haughty 
Plutocrat that they have unwittingly allowed 
to assume the power of a dictator, by the cer- 
tain and peacable process of taxation. 

The propriety of and imperative necessity 
for corrective measures is conceded. The 
Populist state government of Kansas record- 
ed the fact that they favored the project now 
before Congress, 

To call down the tyrant and twist the spine 
Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks. 

6. BY BIRTHRIGHT AND PRECEDENT, 

KANSAS SHOULD LEAD. 

In the struggle to wipe out chattel slavery, 
Kansas took the lead; and in the pending- 
contest for the overthrow of industrial 
slavery, she placed herself at the head of the 
advancing column in 1893. Individual ambi- 
tion and personal interest has helped to 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. til) 

soften the blow she then struck at Plutocracy, 

but a love for justice that was planted on 
Kansas soil forty years ago, has become as 
hardy as though indigenous. While ambi- 
tion and error, prejudice and discord have 
brought disaster to the hosts of reform in 
Kansas, and carried joy to the enemies of 
equal rights throughout the country, Kansas 
will again be faithful to the principles 
planted at her birth, watered with the best 
blood, and bred in the bone. She will again 
take her place at the head of the advancing 
column of liberty \s legions, — of enlighten- 
ment and progress. 

We have seen that the demands of justice 
call for a heavy tax on the luxury of ill gotten 
and inordinate wealth to protect and employ 
those who have not the opportunity to get it. 
Also that the measure under consideration. — 
after permitting the plunderers to lay aside a 
million dollars apiece from their booty, — pro- 
vides for collecting two billion dollars an- 
nually from the balance, to begin the great 
work of readjusting economic conditions and 
restoring to the masses the right to the fruits 
of their toil and the comforts of life. 

7. DIFFUSING THE PLUNDER. 

It costs us now to be governed, a little over 
a billion dollars a year (national, state and 
municipal). So the sum collected by this 
project would be nearly twice as large as all 
other public receipts. 

This immense fund should not only be used 
in a way that would restore it to the people 
without delay, but to leave evidences of en- 
during benefits. 

8. HOW TO DO THIS. 

The first draft on this fund provided for in 
the bill, takes from the shoulders of the over- 



70 CUTTING THE G >RDIA.N KNOT. 

taxed masses, the whole cost of pensions, in- 
cluding a service pension when that is ordered. 
In addition to that it provides for the pay- 
ment to the ex-soldiers, the amount due them 
on account of the difference in value between 
the money they were paid in and coin, with 
interest at 6 per cent, from Jan. 1st, 1866, 
compounded semi-annually. 

9. BANISHING FORCED IDLENESS. 

The second appropriation which the 
measure proposes to make from the proceeds 
of this tax, is to employ all idle labor — the 
forces which the gamblers have got cornered 
and are holding down in the Slough of Des- 
pond — on public improvements, and to pay 
for tools, materials, rights of way and sites 
for the same, in every organized county. 

10. MAINTAINING THE MILITIA. 

The third call on this fund is for the main- 
tenance of the state military establishments, 
thereby permitting the corporations and the 
wealthy to pay the expenses of these depart- 
ments, as the service rendered by state troops 
is almost entirely in behalf of these interests. 

11. ALLOTTING THE READJUSTING CURRENT. 

The fundamental forces on which all in- 
crease in wealth is based, are land, labor, 
and money; the latter being the least im- 
portant factor. In a process of readjustment 
all of these factors should be called into use, 
and we should be philosophical enough to give 
them all equal force— give them all an 
equality of energy,— though in the reverse 
process. — the taxation provided for in the 
constitution— the indiv iduals— labor— h a v < - 
had to carry the whole burden. This pre- 
cedent would justify a resort to the one factor 
— labor — on which to base our efforts to cur- 
tail the power of the millionaire cranks. 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 



But the American Laborer seeks only justice, 
not vengeance. Hence this measure provides 
that the net proceeds of this graduated tax on 
inordinate wealth, shall be apportioned 
among the states in proportion to the three 
factors combined; one-third to area (land) — 
one-third to population (labor) — and one-- 
third to wealth (money). 

Under such an apportionment a state with 
one per cent, of the area, two per cent, of the 
population, and three percent, of the wealth 
would draw one- third of six percent, of <f>2,- 
000,000,000, or $40,000,000. 

Using the statistics of the 1890 census, the 
states of Kansas and Georgia would draw 
exactly the same amount, as follows: 



Per Cent, of Total. Kansas 

Area 3.1 

Population 2.3 

Wealth 1.4 



Georgia 
2.3 
2,9 
1.6 



Total, . . 6.8 6.8 

Six and eight-tenths per cent, of $2,000,- 
000,000, divided by three, equals 815,333,333, 
to be expended in each of these states the 
first year. The following table show the ap- 
portionment to some of the other states on 
the same estimate of net receipts: 



STATE. 



New York 

Pennsylvania. .. 

Texas 

California 

Massachusetts 

Illinois 

Missouri 

Iowa 

New Jersey 

Colorado 

North Carolina 

Arkansas 

Rhode Island .. , 
Deleware 



Per 


Cent. 


of Total. 


c8 
< 


c3 • 

3 ~ 


5 

Ol 

14.9 


7? 
o 


1.8 


9.6 


26.3 


1.8 


8.4 


10.4 


20.6 


10.5 


3.6 


3.1 


17.2 


6.0 


2.9 


4.3 


13 2 


0.3 


3.6 


8.5 


12 4 


2.1 


6.1 


3.2 


11.4 


2.5 


4.3 


3.5 


10.3 


2.1 


3.1 


2.0 


7.2 


0.3 


2.3 


3.5 


6.1 


4.0 


0.7 


0.9 


5.6 


1.9 


2.6 


0.9 


5.4 


2.0 


1.8 


0.3 


4.5 


00.05 


0.6 


1.3 


195 


00.08 


0.3 


0.3 


0.68 



APPORTION- 
MENT. 



••$175,333,333 

137,333,333 

114,666,667 

88,000,000 

82,666,667 

76,000,000 

68,666,667 

48,000,000 

40,666,667 

37,333,333 

36,000,000 

30,000,000 

13,000,000 

4,333,333 



CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



12. INTO THE POCKETS OF HONEST LABOR. 

Having apportioned this 12,000,000,000 
among the states and deposited it with several 
state treasurers, making them thereby Nation- 
al depositories, the next step is to get it into 
the people's pockets where it belongs. That 
there may be no opportunity for dallying 
over or meddling with the veterans dues, the 
bill provided in Sec. 24 that, "The Treasury 
Department of the United States shall, dur- 
ing the last week in January and July of 
each year, certify to the Treasurer of each of 
the states their estimate of the funds that 
will be required during the next six months 
to meet the drafts for the ex-soldiers who are 
residents of that state; and on receipt of this 
notification, the said Treasurer shall deduct 
and set apart from the proceeds of this tax 
the amount so certified. , ' 

Sec. 22 provides that payments shall be 
made for pensions by draft of the Pension 
Bureau on the Treasurer of each state, for 
pensioners who are residents of that state. 
(This Sec, specifies pensions "allowed by the 
United States for service in the war between 
the States.'' This should be amended to 
cover the pensioners of all previous wars. ) 

Sec. 25 provides that after these amounts 
have been deductecTto meet the payments to 
ex- soldiers, the balance of this fund shall be 
expended by the state authorities on public 
improvements and the state military estalish- 
ment. 

13. FEASIBLE, JUST AND CERTAIN. 

Now having seen that the re-adjustment of 
opportunities and conditions proposed by 
this measure is feasible; that it is just; that its 
action would be certain and its beneficent 
effects immediately realized; let us see if it also 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 73 

has other attributes that should enable it 
to command the support of the Union veterans, 
of the industrial classes, and of the Confeder- 
ate veterans; and thereby inaugurate a co- 
operation foi saving the Nation, that would 
insure its enactment. Let us resume the 
consideration of what it meant when it received 
the sanction and support of the Populist State 
Government of Kansas. 

14. AS TO THE UNION SOLDIER. 

For thirty years the veterans have shown 
their loyalty and leniency by not prosecuting 
their claim against the Government for back 
pay. They are entitled to their long withheld 
dues. They should now demand them. They 
not only risked their lives and poured out 
their blood, but they gave more in actual 
money value to the government than heavy 
usury and light patriotism induced the cap- 
italists to lend it. 

In discussing this feature of the records of 
the war and the nation's unpaid debt to the 
veteran soldier, the National Tribune of May 
4th, 1893, said in an article headed, 

15 • 'LENDING GOLD AND GIVING MANHOOD."' 

"Every man who answered the government's call 
made a distinct and very large pecuniary sacrifice, to 
say nothing as to the hardships and dangers he was to 
encounter. The government wages — at first $11 and 
then 8 13 a month— were very much lower than those a 
man would receive at home working at anything he 
chose to follow The Volunteer, filled with love of 
country, started out by making a large monetary con- 
tribution to the country in the difference between the 
wages that he was then receiving and those that it of- 
fered him. On the other hand the money lenders, who 
ran no personal risk whatever, insisted on driving a 
hard bargain with the government." 

"Toward the last of 1862 it was clearly seen that 
this struggle was to be a prolonged one. * 
Up to this time the total loans to the government 
were .$783,804,256, while 1,079,331 men had volunteer- 
ed for three years, showing that the money lenders 
had only loaned about $780 for every man who had 
volunteered for three years." 



i-i CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

"By July 1864 the gold value of the greenback had 
fallen to 38 cents on the dollar. A man would take 
•slOO in greenbacks, the gold value of which was .$38, 
and buy with them a bond for $100, upon which he 
would receive $6 in gold for interest, or nearly 16 per 
cent. 

"In spite of this enormous profit, they absolutely 
refused to lend any more money in July, 1S64. It 
was the most critical period of the war. * * * * 
The harassed Secretary of the Treasury rushed off 
to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to have per- 
sonal interviews with the moneyed men, and beg 
them to raise him $50,000,000 for the emergency. 
Not a dollar could he get. 

"In his despair he turned to the gallant men who, 
with undaunted resolution, were facing the enemy 
around Petersburg, Atlanta and elsewhere. He 
made no mistake there. They were as ready to aid 
the government with their money as they were with 
their gallant hearts and stalwart arms, and out of 
their scanty pay they loaned it over $20,000,000, 
which greatly helped to tide over the crisis " 

******* 

"In all, the money lenders lent -the government 
$2,381,530,294 in paper money. As the average value 
of the greenbacks in which these loans were made 
was about 60 cents, this represents a gold value of 
only $1,428,918,120. On this the bond holders have 
received nearly $5,000,000,000 in gold, or about four 
times the original lending." 

"On the otner hand the 2,000,000 men who fought 
the battles of the Union through to a triumphant 
finish, each sacrificed fully $1,500 in the diminshed 
earnings accepted in order to serve and save the 
country. In other words they absolutely gave the country 
hundvetis of million* of dollars more than the bondholders 
>> nt it." 

"Yet the men who, in addition to fighting for their 
country as men never fought before, robbed them- 
selves and their families of their scanty earnings in 
order to help the Nation out of its mortal peril, have 
received in pensions less than $1,500,000,000, while 
the bondholders have received more than three 
times as much." 

16. A NEW PARTY DEMANDS JUSTICE FOR 
THE VETERANS. 

This bill and its endorsement by the Popu- 
list State Government meant that a new party 
was taking up the cause of the veterans: a 
party that proposed to reimburse them for 
their money loss, and cancel this debt, not by 
collecting the funds for this purpose from the 
impoverished masses, but from those who 



THE TANliLE UNTANGLED. 



had received the greater benefits from the 

war; a parly thai would not require the tes- 
timony in behalf of an applicant for a disabil- 
ity pension to show whether his trouble was 
Republican rheumatism; — or Democratic rheu- 
matism; only that il was a Union soldier's 
rheumatism: a party that will do this because 
they are pledged to "Never <■<■<!*<■ /<< >it<>v<' for- 
ward ''ill i vt ry wrong is righted." 

That is what the Sunflotver Tangle meant; and 
it is what the Populist State Government 
endorsement meant. But it meant more than 
that. It meant that Kansas invited the loyal 
South, — once wayward and rebellious — so 
recently defiant and agressive, for aid in com- 
pelling the Government to do justice to the 
soldiers that defeated them, by settling this 
immense balance due the Union soldiers, and 
by granting them service pensions. That is 
what it meant, and it meant more than that. 
If meant 

A co- operation for saving the. Nation, 
Of bold J "I a a a Rebs n/ul brave Billy Yanks. 
It meant a Treaty of Reciprocity between 
these old time enemies who knew from bitter 
experience what "turning loose the dogs of 
war" means; and who, first one and then the 
other had swallowed the dredges from the cup 
of disaster. While the feeling of bitterness 
on one side and exultation on the other was 
inevitable at the time of the final surrender, 
the philosophy that stirred "Bill Arp" to 
say he ought to be satisfied as he had killed 
as many of the Yanks as they had of him. 
soon led all factions to rejoice over a Union 
triumphant. 

17. TALMAGE ON THE VICTOR'S RETURN. 

There was a memorable reference to the 
events of the closing days of the war at the 
annual dinner of the New England society of 



CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



/ 



New York in 1886. The eloquent Henry W. 
Grady spoke for the "New South," and fol- 
lowed Dr. Talmage, who pictured the return 
of the "boys in blue.*' He (Dr. T.) was a 
spectator at the grand review, — possibly a 
guest — and of that event he says: 

"It was the greatest day I ever saw. The like was 
never witnessed in this world and never will be 
again. It was the day when the armies came 
back from the South and marched in review before 
the President at Washington. God knew that the 
day was stupendous, and He cleared the Heavens of 
cloud and mist and chill, and strung the blue sky as 
a triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass 
under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage 
shook out its welcome as the hosts came over the 
hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed 
their gold to greet the battalions as they came over 
the long bridge in almost interminable lines. The 
Capitol never seemed so majestic as that morning, 
snowy white, looking upon the tide of men that came 
surging down, billow after billow, passing in silence; 
yet I heard in every step the roar of those conflicts 
through which they had waded; and seemed to see, 
dripping from their smoky flags, the blood of our 
country's martyrs " 

"For the best part of two days we stood and 
watched the filing on of the same endless battalions, 
brigade after brigade ; division after division ; host 
after host; ever moving, ever passing; marching, 
marching Tramp, tramp, tramp ! Thousands after 
thousands. Commanders on horses, with their reins 
entwined with roses, their necks enchained with 
garlands — hundreds of thousands of heroes marching 
on! Huzza! Huzza! Shall I ever forget the day?' 7 

18. GRADY ON THE GOING OF THE 
VANQUISHED. 

In his eloquent tribute to the Southern 
soldiers. Mr. Grady who followed Dr. Tal- 
mage, said: 

"Dr. Talmage has drawn for you with a master's 
hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has 
told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, 
they came back to you marching with proud and 
victorious tread, reading their glory in a Nation's 
eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of 
another army that sought its home at the close of 
the late war — an army that marched home in defeat 
and not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, 
but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as 
loving as ever welcomed heroes home? Let me 
picture to you the foot- sore Confederate soldier, as 
buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole 



THE TANGLE INTANlil.ED. 



which was to bear testimony to his children of his 
fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from 
Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of hi -n as ragged, 
half starved, heavy hearted; enfeebled by want 
and wounds; having fought to exhaustion he sur- 
renders his gun, wrings the hands of Jhis comrades in 
silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face 
for the last time to the graves that dot the old Wrginia 
hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the 
slow and painful journey What does he find, let me 
ask you who went to your homes, eager to find in the 
welcome you had justly earned full payment for four 
years sacrifice? What did he find when, having: 
followed the battle -stained cross against over- 
whelming odds, dreading death not half so much as- 
surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosper- 
ous and beautiful? He finds his house in rains, his 
farm devastated, bis slaves free, his stock killed, his 
barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worth- 
less, his social system, feudal in its magnificence,, 
swept away, his people without law or legal status, 
his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy 
on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat his very tra- 
ditions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- 
ment, material or training, — and besides all this 
confronted with the gravest problem that ever met 
human intelligence, — the establishing of a status for 
the vast body of his liberated slaves." 

19. EX- REBELS AND RECIPROCITY. 

It might seem presumptuous for the victors 
to ask the vanquished for assistance in forc- 
ing the government to fulfil its obligations to 
its defenders. It would be, under ordinary 
circumstances, but the benevolent ans'el of 
reciprocity can make many a rugged way 
smooth. Times too have changed since the 
Southern cross went down. The scars and 
devastation of the war are mosth^ gone. The 
questions of the way are settled and its bitter 
memories banishes. New issues are upon us. 

Believing as the Southern people did at 
that time, it w T as their duty to rebel. Believ- 
ing as w T e do. it was our duty to whip them. 
They were entitled to the rights of belliger- 
ents. I fought with the North. There are 
those with us who fought on the other side. 
It matters not to me now where they fough t, 
of if they ever raised a dagger to strike me 



78 CUTTING THE GORDIA.X KNOT. 

down. That was their privilege. We were 
enemies then. We are friends now. No 
people ever took up arms with a more sincere 
and mistaken sense of duty than they did. 
No people ever deserved to be whipped more 
than they did. They deserved our enmity 
and chastisement then. They were scourged 
and beaten. No people ever resumed their 
duties as citizens more readily or sincerely, or 
renewed their loyalty more fully. They 
deserve our confidence, our right hand of 
fellowship, our sympathy, now. I have given 
them mine; and I trust those whose knowledge 
of war's horrors is not from personal exper- 
ience, will do no less. 

2 '. THE AMERICAN IDEA. 

It is time the last of its animosities were 
put as far behind us as are its atrocities, and 
for a spirit of congeniality and reciprocity to 
disarm and subdue any stray vestige of envy 
and distrust. Sound and patriotic counsel on 
ibis duty has been left us by Mr. Grady, who 
in a speech in Boston on Dec. 12th, 1889, said: 

"A mighty duty Sir, and a mighty inspiration im- 
pels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic con- 
secration whatever estranges, and whatever divides. 
We, Sir, are Americans and we fight for human 
liberty! The uplifting force of the American idea is 
under every throne on earth To redeem the earth 
from kingcraft and oppression — this is our mission! 
And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil His 
millenial harvest." 

It is for us of to-day to see that the Amer- 
ican idea resumes its pristine vigor and legal 
position: to see that its fullness and suprem- 
acy are restored, and the dupes and vassals 
of its plutocratic enemies are officially notified 
that their teachings are a heresy — their doings 
treason. 

Among the fallacies of their one-sided 
philosophy there is nothing more fraudulent 
than their method of taxation. Instead of 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 



imposing taxes in proportion to their ability 
to pay or boar them, they are now 
generally imposed in proportion to the 
inability to escape or evade them while ex- 
emptions arc in proportion to the ability to 
pay. The bill in question not only proposes 
to reverse the habit to commence a just pro- 
cess, but also to correct some of the injustice 
already done through the subservience of 
government to plutocratic dictators. 

It will not only relieve the toiling masses 
of the West and South, from the great drain 
for the pension fund, but of the East as well. 
as it places the entire burden of this immense 
sum on the class which received the greater 
financial benefits from the war. and who have 
used the power and opportunities which they 
could not have acquired except through the 
valor and sacrifices of the men who stood 
between them and ruin — between their gov- 
ernment and anarchy — to plunder and per- 
secute, to impoverish and curse: the class 
who have placed their country in the lead, in 
the pathway of nations. 

These favored few — the millionaires — now 
have the property of the country. 

21. ATTACK THE MILLIONAIRES 

with the constitutional weapon of the bal- 
lot. Dig the foundation from under their 
piles by a hydraulic stream of taxation. 
Diffuse the washings in the name of the Great 
Jehovah and the Continental Congress. — by 
the humane command of charity and the 
biblical command of God. That is what the 
resolution passed by the Kansas Legislature 
meant. 

It is what the bill now before Congress 
means, and that the first payment from the 
proceeds of this readjusting tax be for the 



80 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



purpose of meeting the claims of the Union 
Soldiers against the government: and that 
the partisan and penurious spirit displayed by 
the government in its treatment of its de- 
fenders be overcome by the aid of the ex- 
Confederates. 

Do you ask wherein is the spirit of Recip- 
rocity in this proposition? 

At present our 10,000 millionaires, who 
have their railroads, their manufactories and 
warehouses, their mortgages and pipe lines 
all over the country, if they have a family of 
four persons, pay $10 each to make lip this 
fund. The laborer who makes $10 a week, 
and the crippled veteran who may have to 
live on his meager pension, pays about the 
same as the millionaire. We(?) have two 
millionaires whose income is about $10,000,- 
000 a year each, and many who have $1,000,- 
M »0 a year or $5.40 a minute. So the laborer 
with a family of four and a $10 salary, works 
a week to pay his share of this war account; 
while the necessary amount rolls into the 
other man's pocket in one and six-sevenths 
minutes. 

For thirty years the laboring men have 
been paying this account. This bill proposes 
that the millionaires shall pay it awhile. 
Their vast possessions are scattered through 
every state, and whether they cluster in New 
York or Chicago, — whether they summer in 
Europe or Newport — whether theyhybernate 
in New York or Washington, this measure 
shows them how they may do their part in 
paying the debt of the Nation to its defenders. 

That is what this measure means. It is 
what the endorsement of the Kansas State 
Government meant. Will the men whose 
blood stained banner massed into the shadows 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED 



81 



at Appomattox refuse to aid in lifting this 

burden from the shoulders of their laboring 
people and putting it on the shoulders of the 
men who have been sharp enough to escape 
it for 30 years? 

22. LIFTING A BURDEN FROM THE 

SHOULDERS OF LABOR. 

One of the features in this measure of 
Reciprocity says to the sturdy and patriotic 

men of the South, aid us in forcing the Gov- 
ernment to keep its obligation to the soldiers 
that saved the country, and we united will 
take this great burden from the shoulders of 
all of our toilers and put it where it belongs, 
on the wealth of the land instead of on the 
poverty of the people. 

Do the men of the South not see where is 
the spirit and essence of mutual assistance 
in this? 

Take your statistical tables showing popu- 
lation, pension payments, and oth<-r charges 
on account of the war. The present annual 
war charges amount to about $2.50 apiece, 
which is collected from the citizens of all of 
the states. Xow figure what the citizens of 
the several states pay on this account Put 
beside these figures the amount they receive 
from pensions. The following gives a few of 
these figures. 

Pay on War Receive from 

States Account. Pension- 1894. 

New York •'$14,994'632 811,937,643 

Ohio 9,180,790 14,737,192 

Indiana 5,481,010 10,841,566 

Iowa 4,779,740 5,760,364 

Kansas 3,567,740 6,048,592 

Tennessee 4,418'795 2,658,726 

Texas 5,588,807 1,030,283 

North Carolina 4,044,867 572,334 

Georgia 4,593,382 511,271 

The laboring masses pay the bulk of these 

sums in the shape of what is really a per 

capita tax. The scheme in question relieves 



82 CUTTING THE GORDIAX KNOT. 

all but the millionaires of this charge, and 
puts not only the whole of it on the latter 
class, but also enough tax to completely 
liquidate the union soldiers other claims. 
Though the possessions of our 10,000 million- 
aires are spread over the country from Gad 
to Beersheba, their property would be re- 
quired to pay in proportion to the owner's 
ability. 

This pension fund has been an onerous 
burden to the Southern people. Under this 
measure no state would receive any less than 
now. Instead, , every state would receive 
much more, but it would be collected from a 
different source. 

Every state would be benefited by a release 
from the total amount its individual citizens 
now pay on its accounts, as it would then be 
gathered from the vast accumulations of 
plunder that now are a curse to the masters 
in their castles and the slaves in their cabins. 

Releasing the industrial classes from this 
load would practically release the state so 
far as business prosperity is concerned, as 
thriving business in a state or nation is de- 
pendent upon the prosperity of the masses. 

At present the Northern States get very 
much more than they pay ; and the Southern 
States pay much more than they get. Re- 
leasing them both from the drafts on their 
industrial classes will bless both and wrong 
neither, even if it forces the millionaires to 
disgorge for the purpose of enabling the 
government to fulfill its obligations to the 
Union soldiers. That is what the resolu- 
tion endorsed by the Kansas State Govern- 
ment meant, and it is what H. R. 861s now 
before Congress means. 



THE TAK3J E UNTANGLED. 83 

L , :». ARE YOU READY FOR THE QUESTION? 

No Sir! The bill though pigeon-holed by 
the finance committee is being" discussed by a 
higher house. It is not going to be tabled 
until it is debated. It is not going to be 
passed without being understood. Nor is it 
going to be sneaked out of the pigeon-hole 
and skulked into the waste basket by thequiet 
instructions of a wink to a janitor or cleric, 
without an opportunity for its enemies to 
point out its wickedness, or its friends to 
understand its proposed effects. It is not 
going to be expunged without a protest nor do 
we ask that it be enacted loithout a roll coll. 

24. THE ANGEL OF RECIPROCITY. 

The measure contains not only the olive 
branch of peace, but the Angel of Reciprocity 
has come with his benignant smiles to help 
carry its benefactions into 12, 0< H >.> " M I homes. 
One of the paths he would follow has already 
been outlined. Another will be discussed 
after a brief summary of what the project 
proposes for the toilers. 

25. AS TO THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES. 

Business is never dull when the laborer 
can find work at good wages. Times are 
never hard when all are profitably employed, 
and wages are never low when there are no 
involuntary idlers. Times are dull now be- 
cause of the millions of idlers unable to get 
the things they need, and of the low wages of 
those still at work, including the farmers 
who now work practically for nothing. 

Thirty million people seem to be a few 
million more than our 10,000 millionaires care 
to employ. A few millions idle and in want 
makes it so much easier to adjust the rations 
and pocket money of those they retain. 
Really, as a business matter, it is best for 



84 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

them to keep a few millions idle. By keeping 
5,000,000 idle and 5,000,000 more on short 
rations, capital can hire labor at its own 
figures; and so, to keep a good supply on the 
anxious seat, the services of a few million are 
not needed "just at present." 

The millionaires with no other incentive 
than cold blooded avarice are not competent 
to ptirsue any different policy. Labor in self 
defense must show them a better way. In a 
spirit of fraternity it must rebuild their en- 
vironment, reconstruct their disjointed ideas 
of morality and duty to their fellowmen, and 
clean out the fountain of their inspirations. 

This measure which the Kansas State Gov- 
ernment endorsed takes the laborer's side in 
this struggle and furnishes upwards of a 
billion dollars a year to the several states to 
give employment to the idle, and thereby ad- 
vance the pay of every other toiler. It pro- 
poses to make the demand for labor exceed the 
supply, and to get the fund for doing this by a 
tax on the Plutocrats plunder, to be expended 
in public improvements under state and 
county authority. Sections 25, 26, 27 and 28 
show how. 

26. REVIVING GOD"S LAW. 

This will revive God's law ' 'In the sweat of 
thy brow shaft thou (have opportunity to) eat 
bread;" and it will repeal the Plutocrats 
amendment " The People be Ihrnoied." 

It means— the laborer, being worthy of his 
hire — he is going to get it without being 
gouged and buncoed and swindled and bled 
at every turn to keep a select bevy of useless 
drones lounging in some shad}^ nook and 
gloating over the success of their villainous 
schemes to plunder the farmers whose mis- 



THE TANGLE [JNGANGLED. 85 

placed confidence has given them the oppor- 
tunity to show how fully they have betrayed 
these friends of their childhood. 

It means an end to the steady drain from 
industry; an end to the demands of the usurer; 
an end to the rule of Shy lock; and that the 
gentle hand of justice will tear the motto 
from the tenant's door, that Shylock has just 
put there — "The People be Damned" — and 
placard the gorgeous palaces of Fifth Avenue 
with his revised version of the epigram — 
"The Dollar be Damned." 

It means an opportunity for every American 
citizen to earn a home, and that 100 per cent, 
of the citizens of New York may live under 
their own roof, instead of six per cent, as 
now. 

It means somewhat of a return to the 
Christian impulses of our fathers, a repudia- 
tion of the alliance with Satan, an end to the 
daily confession at the shrine of the Golden 
Calf, and the restoration of, and a new lease 
of life for the American Republic. 

It means that the opportunities for im- 
provement, for recreation, for having the 
comforts of life, and a taste of its luxuries 
now monopolized by the few. will be extended 
to the many; and Reader, that your children 
and mine will never be forced to go to bed 
hungry or accept the cold crust of charity. 

27. WHAT SAY YOU. BRIGADIERS OF 
LABOR'S LEGIONS"? 

Are you ready to sanction a new combine, 

A coming together of once hostile ranks, 

That will call down the tyrant and twist the spine, 

Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks? 

They have too long been shielded in prose- 
cuting their grand schemes of plunder by the 
aid of laws they have instructed their tools 
in Washington to pass, and of funds these 



80 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

servants have extorted from the producers. 

The toilers are on the border land of pov- 
erty. Their persecutors stand by gloating 
oyer their downfall, while figuring on new 
schemes to grind them in the dust. Our 
President is their servant. Our Congress is 
made up of their vassals. Our Courts are 
their valets. These servants of Mammon's 
apostle are instructed what to do in behalf of 
their masters, the same as a trusted and 
faithful scullion is instructed how he shall 
bring pleasure to his lord. They have been 
protected in the enjoyment of the luxury of 
inordinate wealth by the use of funds they 
have had their vassals appropriate from the 
scanty earnings of the toilers as before shown. 
It is time they had a new idea in finance. 
This bill proposes a new lesson. 

It may not be as hard a lesson as they 
should learn. It may not be the best lesson 
they could have. Let us concede it is not. 
But it is better than none. It defines a policy 
more equitable than the methods they practice 
for plundering the millions. It will bury the 
Plutocrats battle ax of starvation, and teach 
him a lesson from the manual of humanity. 

Exempting ,the industrial classes it calls on 
the millionaires for the funds to meet the 
greatest annual charge against the Govern- 
ment, from which they have been exempt till 
they claim it as a right, and also for money 
for two new funds. 

28. ROUTING THE GUERILLAS OF 

PLUTOCRACY. 

They have prosecuted their war on the 
toilers through trusted bands of guerillas, 
covering the intricate mazes of commercial 
and financial transactions. They flood the 
lobby with their followers. They fill the 



THE TANGLE UNGA.NGLED. S, 

chairs of the press censors with their tools, 

and the columns of the metropolitan dailies 
with their poison. Labor need not resort to 
so reprehensible methods to oppose them, or 
assert the righteousness of its purpose or 
proclaim the justice of its demands. It can 
meet these guerillas of Plutocracy with a 
solid line of labors legions armed with the 
open and silent, the honorable and invincible- 
weapon of the ballot, that demands a process 
of taxation that will not only correct the 
wrongs of the present, and make restitution 
to labor for the wrongs of the past, but that 
will call back these wild and reckless free- 
booters to the realms of virtue andloyalty. of 
fraternity, charity, and liberty. When once 
understood there need be no fear but that the 
industrial classes will sustain the Kansas 
State Government in its endorsement of the 
measure for a Graduated Tax on the property 
of the millionaires for the purpose of dissi- 
pating the plunder in their vast accumula- 
tions, and giving to labor its rightful posi- 
tion — its just reward. 

29. AS TO THE EX-CONFEDERATE. 

It is more than thirty years since our civil 
war closed. The Southern people are now 
as loyal as those of any other section. The 
lessons the war taught us can never be for- 
gotten. The faith and spirit of the contend- 
ing hosts, and the sacrilices they made in 
maintaining their interpretation of our funda- 
mental law. will make these lessons 
enduring as monumental brass; bul il is time 
the Last vestige of its sectional prejudices, 
and partisian animosities were buried, 
because there is no sense in longer nut 
them, and because political valets of PI it tec- 
racy have used the opportunities they o 



88 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 

to serve their masters and wrong the Nation 
and its loyal people. Had the civil questions 
of the war been settled by the men who fought 
its battles, instead of the ferocious "stay at 
home rangers," the spirit of harmony and 
good will would have spread its mantle of 
fraternity over the victor and vanquished 
twenty years ago. 

The past however is beyond our reach. The 
present and future alone remain for us to 
improve. A spirit of fraternity between the 
"Bold Johnny Reb," and the "Brave Billy 
Yank" prevades the measure under discussion. 
It has already been shown how a release of 
the industrial classes from the load of war 
charges would practically release the state; 
as by taking this sum from the pockets of the 
multi-millionaires instead of from the laborer's 
scanty pay, the latter would have this vast 
s"um for their own use and the former would 
not be pinched so as to materially curtail his 
personal expenses. If we tax him enough 
to enable the Government to keep all of its 
contracts with its defenders, and pay them 
from this fund; it will, while releasing the 
industrial classes from present exactions, add 
to the business stimulant and impulses 
throughout the country, as an enormous sum 
would at once be thrown into industrial 
channels without taking much out. 

30. ANOTHER CHANNEL OF RECIPROCITY. 

The veteran soldiers have been swindled 
long enough for the purpose of pouring un- 
warranted dividends into the cotters of the 
bond holders — dividends not authorized by 
the original contracts and the Southern 
States have been punished long enough for 
any good purpose. 



the tang; e untangled. 89 

They no longer look on the north as their 
enemy; nor have they any reason to. They 
know too that in the conflict that tested the 
mettle of both sections, however much of 
treasure and blood they freely gave in defense 
of what they then thought their rights, it 
cost us more of treasure and more of blood to 
bring them home. While they may not thank 
us for the vigor displayed by the North during 
the struggle, they show their appreciation of 
the forbearance evinced when they yielded to 
force, by their sturdy loyalty of the present. 

One channel of reciprocity has already been 
outlined in the examination of the Union 
Soldier's interest in this measure. Another 
one is contained in the method of distribution 
of the proceeds of this tax. The project calls 
for a semi-annual deposit by the U. S. treas- 
urer with the several state treasurers, of an 
amount in proportion to the area, population 
and wealth of the states. From these deposits 
the Pension Bureau then draws what is 
required for the veterans claims, drawing 
from each state treasurer the amount required 
for residents of that state. The residue of 
the state's share of the proceeds of this tax 
is then expended under state authority on 
public improvements and the military estab- 
lishment. So whether a state has a large or 
small roll of pensions its receipts under this 
bill would be just the same; and what was 
not expended to cancel the claims of the 
veterans, would be the funds of the State, 
appropriated for the purposes specified above. 
Now let us see 

31. HOW THE SCHEME WOULD WORK 
IN PRACTICE. 

Take as examples the two states before re- 
ferred to that would receive the same amount 
from the net proceeds of this tax — Georgia 



90 CUTTING THE GORBIAN KNOT. 

and Kansas. On the estimated first year's 
receipts from this tax the U. S. Treasurer 
would deposit with the treasurer of each of 
these states the sum of $45,333,333. Without 
counting in the service pension or the back pay, 
which the bill provides for, the draft of the 
Pension Bureau on this fund would be about 
$6,000,000 for the Kansas soldiers, and $500,001 > 
for those in Georgia. Kansas would then 
have upward of $39,000,000 for the other 
purposes, and Georgia would have nearly 
$45,000,000. This would give Georgia a surplus 
to smooth over the last vestige of the scars 
of war. The south would then have the means 
to develop their yet latent resources, in stu- 
pendous public improvements, that for thirty 
years they have been forced to forego for the 
lack of funds; and at the same time the North 
would have the cash to pay the last nickle of 
the soldier's just claims, as well as immense 
sums for the same grand purpose of public- 
improvements. 

32. THE SENSE OF RECIPROCITY; THE 
NONSENSE IN ANIMOSITY. 

Is there any reason why the gallant South- 
ern soldier, who, with his parole in his 
pocket and wringing the hands of his com- 
rades in silence, turned his back on the grave- 
dotted Virginia hills about Appomattox and 
began his journey home, as pictured .by 
Grady, cannot support such a measure of 
Reciprocity as will, while releasing them 
from an onerous burden and carrying back to 
their laboring people a large per cent, of 
their lost earnings of the past thirty years. 
force the government to turn the current of 
its generosity from the plundering capitalists 
to the patient and patriotic veterans whose 
valor and sacrifices brought us safely through 
that memorable struggle? 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 9 1 

Is there any reason why the brave Northern 
soldiers, who, at the grand review at Wash- 
ington came surging down Pennsylvania 
avenue, of whom Talmage says: "billow after 
billow; passing in silence; yet I heard in every 
step the roar of those conflicts through which 
they had wadecl; and seemed to see, dripping 
from their smoky flags the blood of our 
country's martyrs," cannot support a measure 
of Reciprocity that, while forcing the Govern- 
ment to forget its many times redeemed 
obligations to the bond holder long enough 
to cancel its unpaid debt to its sturdy defend- 
ers in our "hour of darkness and peril and 
need," — while releasing our laboring masses 
from an onerous burden of taxation and offer- 
ing them the opportunities for advancement 
and the comforts of life which are rightly 
theirs by the command of God Almighty and 
the promise of our fundamental law — accords 
to the men who wore the gray and their sec- 
tion, opportunities for a new lease of life and 
a new song of liberty as they share with us 
the proceeds of this readjusting measure'? 

There is no reason why the heroes who 
wore the blue should not make a treaty of 
reciprocity with the heroes who wore the 
gray, and form an Alliance as outlined above; 
A co-operation for saving the Nation, of the 
bold Johnny Rebs with the brave Billy Yanks. 

33. LET US HAVE PEACE. 

In holding out these opportunities to the 
industrial classes, to the Northern veterans, 
and the ex-Confederates, the measure in 
question possesses the attributes that will 
enable it to command the support of a major- 
ity of the American people when fairly under- 
stood. 



92 CUTTING THE G )RDIAN KNOT. 

Iii the replevin of $20,000,000,000 of the 
Plutocrat's plunder, in the next decade, and 
restoring it to the toiling millions, it would 
make record of a long step in the re-adjust- 
ment of economic conditions, that would 
Inevitably be continued until the demand of 
the Omaha Platform for ' 'equal rights for all 
and special privileges for none" would pass 
from a dream to a fact. 

In offering land to the landless, and in 
restoring to every industrious American citi- 
zen a home of his own, it would re-establish 
the fabric of our institutions on a substantial 
foundation. 

In turning into the State Treasuries a large 
fund for public improvements, which the 
measure provides shall be expended in sites, 
right of way, tools, and the employment of 
idle labor, it would furnish the states the 
funds which they could use if they, chose for 
either the construction or the purchase of 
railroads and telegraphs. With money they 
could use for this purpose in the treasuries, 
and more coming in every six months from the 
counter current of a re-adjusting pipe-line, the 
people through their state officers would be 
masters of the situation. State ownership 
would be less cumbersome, and probably 
more successful than National, as the man- 
agement would be nearer the people — more 
closely watched, and more accessible. 

34. labor's jubilee. 

With these immense funds flowing back 
from the piles of plunder, whose vicious get- 
ting and corrupt use have contaminated the 
springs of individual effort and corrupted our 
vast system of public service through the 
various state treasuries into the channels of 
industrial activity, every resting nerve and 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 93 

muscle of the Nation would resume its work. 
The lack of confidence would be dissipated in 
a night. The depressions in business would 
vanish with the morning sun. The last wheel 
of industry would resume its merry hum. for 
we would have Cut the Gordian Knot that locks 
the property of the Nation in the corsair's 
coffers, and turned a steady counteracting 
stream from the Vampire's Vaults through a 
Re-adjusting Pipe-Line back into the produc- 
er's pockets. This process would soon restore 
to those who have created it, a reasonable 
per cent, of the Nation's wealth. 

With the idlers employed; with business 
revived: with the veterans rewarded; with 
confidence restored; with the producers 
garnering a profitable harvest; with consum- 
ers able to double their purchases and willing 
to pay fair prices, a rainbow of content would 
span the country from Sanely Hook to the 
Golden Gate: and the anthems of a prosper- 
ous people would again carry to the tyrants *of 
the Old World, the tidings of America's despots 
deposed and the American lie public restored. 

That is what the Sunflower Tangle meant. 
It is what the Kansas State Government en- 
dorsement of H. R. 659.") meant. It is what 
the present bill (No. 8618) means. 

Will the Kansas delegation to the National 
Peoples Party Convention help to cut the 
Gordian Knot of combined capital, and in the 
pending case vote to re-establish human 
rights rather than condone money wrongs? 

Will they uphold the action and efforts of 
their State Government in behalf of A Grad- 
uated Property Tux for attacking the combina- 
tions and corporations that now hold the 
battle ax of Starvation over the heads of 
American Laborers by the help of their allies, 
— perjured Courts and a boodling Congress? 



94 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

Will they, armed with the powerful and 
harmless — the peaceful and conquering — the 
mild ajid effective weapon of Graduated 
Property Taxation entwined in an olive 
branch ^nd stamped on a ballot, lead the 
assault on the intrenchments of an insolent, a 
law breaking and God defying enemy of Re- 
publican Institutions, who holds fortified posi- 
tions in every state and has been able to 
"quarter a soldier in every house?" 

The details in the measure discussed are not 
essential. They were drawn tooutline a basis 
for discussion to get a starting point; to 
modify or amend as debate or experiment 
revealed the necessity. The general princi- 
ple of a graduated tax on property, and the 
necessity for it and the possibilities of it are 
the vital features of the measure. 

Shall the conclusions of our State Govern- 
ment on this question be sustained, and will 
Kansas again guide the car of progress over 
a great "divide" between hostile theories — a 
divide between a land cursed with the blight 
of industrial slavery, and a realm where the 
laborer as well as the loafer may gather 
the fruit and enjoy the shade of his 
own vine and fig tree? 

Let us of Kansas in doing the part to which 
destiny seems to have called us, in behalf of 
the cause we advocate and the justice we 
demand, realizing that, under present con- 
ditions, Republican Institutions are a practi- 
cal failure, and that the curtain must soon fall 
to close the last act of the great comedy- 
tragedy play, so mould our purposes and 
inflexibly draft our designs, that from the 
very fairness of our plans and the equity of 
our projects, we may convince the jury of 
12.000,000 men to whose calm judgement we 



THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. '.».") 

appeal, that it rests with them to now say to 

our imperious masters, whether or not we 

will sit idly by to see Republican Institutions 

go down, or whether from, 

Justice's honored castle 

We will hurl the wild Pretender 

And install our old Defender. 

Let us speak in 1896 in hard words the thoughts 
of 1896, (Did hold out the olive branch of lasting 
peace to the autocratic usurpers; an olive branch 
whose every leaf will sparkle with the jewels 
of fraternity ; and whose nodding sprays will 
make fragrant every breeze that fans them, 
by the exhalations from the blessed message 
it bears to the agents and representatives of 
capitalistic despotism, that it is hereby 
decreed that no law abiding and in- 
dustrious american citizen shall longer 
Buffer from want in a land of plenty; 
that no american children shall be 
longer forced to get their education 
in the city streets; that no american 
family shall be turned into the high- 
ways and scattered to the winds in a 

LAND DOTTED WITH DESERTED HOMES, for 

lack of an opportuity to earn, not only the 
necessaries but the comforts of life; AS the 
shackles of industrial slavery, with 
the Golden Calf it has enabled the 
masters to rear and induced them to 
worship, are to be thrown together into 
the furnace of 
GRADUATED PROPERTY TAXATION. 



96 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



The Grip of a Great Corporation, 



CHAPTER V. 

Contents: 1. Railroad Assessments. 2. Specula- 
tive and Assessed Values. 3. "Slipped a Cog.'* 
4. Old Friends. 5. Cornered Populists. 6 First 
Reports. 7. Reports Confirmed. 8. A Pro- 
test Filed. 9. A Meeting of the Board Called. 
10. Two Uninvited Guests. 11. King Party and a 
Spectre Come. 12. An Important Question. 
13. The Senate Orders an Investigation. 14 A 
Triple Alliance Annuls the Order. 15. A 
Difference of Opinion. 16. One Good Turn 
Deserves Another. 17. Spiked Guns. IS. A 
Guarded Wood-pile. 19. "Watchman! What Of 
the Night?" 



1. SOME RAILROAD ASSESSMENTS 

-,-v 



HE Gordian Knot of capital, that sup- 
r^i ports a barrier usually dividing the 
masses into two nearly equal contending 
forces, and keeps them disputing over "local 
questions," shimmering illusions and the 
smoke of extinct volcanoes, cannot be cut 
without unseating some party gods and sweep- 
ing some wayward watchmen from party 
decks. 

To cut this knot, parties must be forced to 
say what they mean, .and leaders to practice 
what they are told to preach. When they do 
this they will "Hew to the Line." This is 
the purpose of the Populist party. Among 
the things on which more light is necessary, 
to enable them to hew to the line in Kansas r 
are the railroad assessments of 1894 and '95. 
Nor will the opportunities offered by sending* 



THE GRIP OP A GREAT CORPORATION 97 

some X rays through these transactions, be 
confined to Populist hewers. They will 
carry to the moguls of our wily enemies, an 
invitation to inspect the bones, and measure 
the dimensions of the skeleton in their closet, 
though a Santa Fe guard may stand at the 
door. 

Corporations and combined capital are 
sjmonymous terms. The relentless purpose 
and noxious methods they follow are their 
common attributes. 

I have referred in a previous chapter to the 
grip of a great corporation here in Kansas. 
The handiwork of the Santa Fe R. R. Co. is 
found at every turn in the political history of 
the state for the past twenty years. 

There has been for several years, an un- 
usual interest in the question of Railroad 
Assessments, both on account of the large 
interests involved, and the efforts of some of 
the companies to evade their share of public 
burdens; and also from a feeling that politics 
had something to do with adjusting the val- 
uations. This work is done by a state board 
consisting of the lieutenant governor, auditor, 
attorney general, treasurer and secretary of 
state. 

Reports show the milage and valuations for 
the past six years as follows: 

Year Miles Valuation. 

1890 8762 64 $57,866,233 

1891 8852.81 50,865,825 

1892 8844.62 51,404,544 

1893 8839.96 61,731,035 

1894 8832.31 59,764,683 

1895 8829.22 59,503,654 

The great reduction made in the assess- 
ment in 1891 was defended by an elaborate 
argument in the report of the board and criti- 
cised by the press and condemned by the 
people. It is generally understood that this 
argument was written by the attorney general 



98 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

who was a Democrat elected by the aid of 
Populist votes. The general protest against 
the work of the board found expression in 
the refusal of the conventions of the next 
year to renominate any of the officers con- 
cerned in it. 

In 1H93 the Populists came into power and 
the railroad valuation was raised over $10, - 
000,030. At the request of the board I wrote 
the argument in the report of that year de- 
fending the increase. Most of the railroad 
companies, and especially the Santa Fe, 
grumbled severely at the change. 

2. SPECULATIVE AND ASSESSED VALUES. 

The railroads reported to the State Board 
of Railroad Commissioners in 1893 that their 
outstanding liabilities for their Kansas 
mileage amounted to $419,892,908, or $47,208 
a mile. 

The United States census report for 1890 
says Kansas assessments average 19 per 
•cent, of true value. Had the railroads in 
1893 been assessed at 19 per cent, of their 
capitalization and liabilities they would have 
paid a tax on about $80,000,000. But the 
board took the pains to get more reliable data, 
than either the census report or the railroad 
returns, and assessed then at $61,731,000 
which was less than 1 5 per cent, of what they 
reported their liabilities at. 

There has been much comment and criti- 
cism on the printed report of 1894 and the 
reduction that shows in behalf of the Santa 
Fe company from the valuations of 1893. 
This criticism has been mostly in a quiet way, 
by wire pullers and ward heelers who had 
evidently been posted for the purpose, but 
these criticisms have not been half what they 
would have been if the papers of either side 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION 99 

felt at liberty to look at the sores. The 
whole matter has been so adroitly manipulat- 
ed in behalf of the Santa Fe company, that 
the papers of both sides understand they are 
living in glasshouses, and for that and other 
reasons have been induced to hunt through 
Armenia and Cuba for important news. 

3. SLIPPED a COG. 

The genuine report of the board for 1894 
has never been published; nor have the full 
taxes it levied on the Santa Fe company been 
collected by many thousands of dollars. The 
report which was printed that year, several 
months later than usual, showed a reduction 
from the valuation made by the Board (in round 
numbers) of $1,420,000, of which reduction the 
Santa Fe system got the benefit of $1,410,000. 
The interest of political parties should, and 
the cause of good government does, require 
that, if these enormous changes were accidents, 
provisions be made to prevent "bunching'' 
such clerical accidents in one company's 
accounts and on one side of the ledger. If 
they were designed, public sentiment is still 
loyal and true enough, whatever public ser- 
vants may happen to have it in their power 
to bring censure on their party, to condemn 
such proceedings. It is a mistaken conclusion 
— a tainted judgment that says that party 
interest requires the condoning of such trans- 
actions. Party interest requires that a party 
retain the confidence of the public, which it 
cannot do without condemning such perform- 
ances, and its faithless servants. It then can 
be censured only for the mistake in selecting 
its servants, and the servants will bear the 
responsibility of the wrong. Condoning their 
follies or defending their faults, it does not 
deserve and cannot expect public confidence. 



100 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

4. OLD FRIENDS. 

At first thought the general silence of the 
Republican papers on this matter seemed 
strange, but it was not. It was what they 
call "good politics" to keep still. It showed 
the harmony and sympathetic co-operation 
between that party and the Santa Fe company, 
and was natural enough. They were not 
only glad of the favor shown their party's 
friend, but they could see it gave the incom- 
ing administration a chance to repeat and 
enlarge the favor. 

5. CORNERED POPULISTS. 

The enemies of the Peoples party were 
.satisfied. If the Status quo could be main- 
tained they could make the Populists carry 
the censure. The party was in a corner. 
Their papers were muzzled. Leaders who 
understood the facts could not satisfactorily 
explain the situation and they let their party 
take the blame by trying to cover up its 
causes. Workers in the townships and 
precincts heard rumors, and charges and 
various stories, but they could not meet or 
parry them. The siren's song of party 
interest had cut their communications. 

The Republican workers had all the facts 

necessary, with such variations as their 

political methods and experience prescribed, 

and they used them with telling effect. An 

extract from a letter of one of our present 

Representatives to me, written last February. 

will illustrate the point. He says: 

"For instance on the farm adjoining mine are three 
brothers, who are nominally populists, but they 
learned of that R. R. assessment scandal the night 
before election in '94 and as a result voted for Over- 
meyer and his ticket; and I, thinking that our men 
were too honorable for such a thing, tried to convince 
them, with the result that they voted against me 
also " 



THE GRIP OF A GKEVT CORPORATION. HI 

There was then no chance for the Popu sts 
to learn the facts except through those con- 
cerned in the transaction, or from the en< 
If the changes in the report were mislft 
how could the Republican heelei-s get infor- 
mation (?) showing a scandal before the report 
was sent from the auditor's office to the = 
printer'.' 

6. FIRST REPORTS. 

At that time I had heard a story of a larg 
reduction in the aggregate, but knowing how 
the members of the Board had talked, how 
they had voted and what valuations they had 
decided on, I looked on the charge as too 
absurd to investigate. But when the fig 
appeared in the papers, it was at once appar- 
ent to those who knew that the board had 
voted at one of their first meetings in 1894 to 
make no changes in valuations that would- 
materially alter the aggregate assessment 
from that of 1893, that the report was not 
the genuine one. 

7. REPORTS CONFIRMED. 

On Monday, Nov. 26th. I received a Topeka 
Press of the 23d which contained a statement 
that the assessor's report on railroad valua- 
tion showed a reduction of about $2,000,000, 
and I immediately wrote to the secretary of 
state-requesting him to go and examine the 
original minutes, and let me hear his coi 
sion on the cause for the discrepancy, as soon 
as convenient. 

On Dec, 3d the secretary replied as I 

Hon. Percy Daniels, 

Dear Sir:— Your letter at hand. We are at pres- 
ent so overwhelmed with work in this office that I 
can hardly find time for anything outside, but have 
looked up the matter of R. R. assessment and find 
the following. The reductions of the board on branch 
lines amount to about 8700,000. The reductions of 
telegraph (by change of rate ) 8-400,000. The remain- 



102 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

ing reductions come by the several companies re- 
porting a less amount of rolling stock and material 
than before, and the difference in side tracks, etc. 
There is now no remedy so far as I can see * * * 
Hurriedly yours, 
• R S. Osborn. 

As I had my memoranda of every change 
from the valuation of '93 which the Board 
voted to make, I took the mileage table, and 
"extending" the several changes on track and 
right of way, found, — as was the intention 
when the changes were made — that the addi- 
tions and reductions about balanced, showing 
no material change in the aggregate. This 
showed that the information that the Secretary 
got before answering my letter was not 
reliable. The figures on the telegraphs I 
thought subject to the same suspicion. 

Dec. 8th I called at the auditor's office and 
examined some of the assessment books, and 
saw that many of the valuations fixed by the 
Board had not been "extended" or carried out 
by the clerks; and then got proof sheets of the 
tables from the state printer, and saw that 
these changed valuations were about to be 
published as the work of the Board. 

8. A PROTEST FILED. 

I then decided to call a meeting to give the 
Board an opportunity to straighten the mat- 
ter; but the auditor was at home sick, the 
attorney general was away and the treasurer 
left that afternoon to be gone several days; 
so a meeting was then impossible, and 
I wrote a protest against further work being 
done on the report by the printer until 
the Board could meet and decide what should 
be done about it. In this protest I, as chair- 
man of the Board, demanded that my protest 
against its completion and circulation as a 
valid report, be given a place therein unless 
it was corrected. Before filing this protest I 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION 1 3 

took it to Judge S. H. Allen at his room, and 
talked the matter over with him and made a 
little change "at his suggestion. The assistant 
secretary of state, D. C. Zercher, was there 
part of the time during our talk. After 
making the change suggested by .) iidge Allen 
I filed it in the secretary's office (the secretary 
of state being secretary of the printing board) 
with Mr. Zercher, as a record of that office, 
and came home the next day expecting to be 
notifiedjWhat action the Printing Board took 
on my protest, The three members of that 
board comprise a majority of the assess s 
Not hearing as I expected, I wrote the secre- 
tary Dec. 11th to learn why. as follows: 

Hon. R. S. Osbom, Secretary of State. 

Dear Sir:— I am expecting to hear from the 
printing board, in reply to my protest against the 
changes in the assessment ( as they are a majority of 
the assessors), either approving or disapproving the 
changes made These changes, I see by the proof 
sheets, make a reduction in main track of one and a 
quarter millions. The proper way to get at a cor- 
rection of the report I think, is for the printing- 
board to reply requesting me as chairman, to call a 
meeting of the assessors. 

The report as furnished the printer shows a dif- 
ferent value per mile of main track on several lines, 
from that decided on by the board at any session 
when I was present and the minutes do not show 
that the valuation of the lines in which these 
changes appear, had been reconsidered and changed. 
Unless the discrepancies and alterations in the re- 
port can be rectified, I must file with your commit- 
tee a protest for publication to be appended to the 
report. The minutes now show that I was present 
when most of these changed valuations were made, 
while part of them you are positive (as you told me, > 
were not made at all. 

I am sorry I could not get the board together when 
I learned of the situation last Saturday. 
Yours Truly, 

Percy Daniel?, 

The Secretary replied as follows: 

Office of Sec'tv of State, \ 
Topeka, Kansas, Dec. 14th, 1894. J 
Hon. Perry Daniel*, Girard, Kansas. 

Dear Sir:— Yours at hand. Mr. Little and myself 
— Mi-. Biddle being absent for two weeks, ordered no 
further work to be done on the report of the R. R. 



104 CUTTING TBE GORDIAN KNOT. 

Assessors until further notice. The press of care in 
finishing up the canvas of the election returns, put 
the notifying you out of my mind. I should have 
done this several days ago. Mr. Biddle will not be 
back for over a week yet. 

The report has been printed and any changes 
made will have to be made by pages of corrections 
added to the back of the report as there is no funds 
left for reprint. You can call the committee(board) 
together at your convenience, but I would suggest 
that you would be more likely to get a full board 
between Christmas and New Year's than any other 
time, yet take your own time. 

Very Resp'ty, 

R S. Osborn. 

9. A MEETING OF THE BOARD CALLED. 

I went to Topeka again the 20th and found 
the reports had been completed and were 
being circulated. I then called a meeting of 
the board the 22nd. The auditor and treasurer 
were not present. We voted to request the 
auditor to furnish a tabulated statement of 
the amount of changes made from last year's 
valuation, by order of the board; and adjourn- 
ed to Jan. 4th, 1895. • 

As the demand that my protest be given a 
place in the report if it was completed and 
circulated without the changes necessary to 
make it conform to the votes of the board, 
had been denied by its completion and circu- 
lation when I supposed work on it had been 
stopped by order of the printing board, I 
then made a statement for the public giving 
the more important of the facts above stated, 
sending copies to the Topeka Capitol, Journal 
and Press. 

1(1. TWO UNINVITED GUESTS. 

Jan. 4th the Board met according to ad- 
journment. All the members were present. 
In calling them to order, I stated that the 
meeting from which this was an adjournment, 
was called to inquire into the cause for the 
great difference between what we supposed 
we had done when we adjourned on the 16th 



THK GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1' >5 

of June, and what the auditor's report said we 
had done; and to find out if possible, when 
our computations as a board showed no 
practical change on main track valuations, 
how the Santa Fe company got a reduction of 
$1,300,000, on that schedule. 

The auditor's statement showed nothing 
satisfactory and the minutes of our regular 
meetings were not to be found. After mak- 
ing some comparisons between '93 and '94 
main track schedules where the '94 figures 
were materially different from those the Board 
had made, and listening to Mr. Prather's 
statement .that he had not been able to give 
the matter his personal supervision as he was 
sick and away from the office much of the 
summer and fall, but the only explanation he 
could give of these discrepancies was that 
they were mistakes, we turned to the schedule 
of buildings of the Santa Pe company and 
found reductions of from five to twenty per 
cent, running through a large part of this 
list. As we had voted to assess these the 
same as "last year'* this was as much of a 
surprise as the reduction in track values. 

I then moved "that the auditor be instructed 
to correct his report; and to certify to the 
counties the proper additional amounts to be 
taxed, and that the tax be added to this year's 
assessment." I listened for a "second" to the 
motion. It did not come. No question was 
before the meeting, but the proposition was 
discussed. Then a long and desultory talk 
about the gratification it would give the 
enemy to get us into a quarrel over the <tu<'->- 
tion, followed 

11. KING PARTY AND A SPECTRE COME. 

An unwelcome guest appeared. It was the 
mightest fool in the land — the biggest power 
saveone — the devil's vicegerent in America — 



106 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

King Party. The people's interests were in- 
definitely postponed. King* Party took the 
floor and what do you think he said? Not 
"let us pray;" but "hear me bray." A ma- 
jority of the Board, I have no doubt, preferred 
to have the wrong righted; but King Party 
stood by every chair with his cutlass and his 
whip. He was not there for amusement but 
came on business; and standing his whip 
before each member's chair he said ' -Beware ! 
I gave you your position and your first al- 
legience is to me. Serve your people when 
you can without disrupting any plan of mine, 
but when their cause and mine conflict you 
must remember me. I move this meeting 
adjourn." 

Another uninvited spectre came. The gilt 
letters on his cap were A. T. & S. F. R. R. 
and addressing the preceding speaker, spoke 
as follows:. "Thou hast well said my noble 
friend King Party. So mote it be. Thy 
timely motion has from me a willing, hearty, 
second."' And it was so. King Party and 
his spectre friend adjourned the meeting. 

12. AX IMPORTANT QUESTION. 

In chapter II I have referred to the grip of 
a groat corporation. The important question 
in this connection is: How much of a foothold 
has this giant corporation got within our party 
lines? Can they get Populist assent to their 
schemes to enable them to find opportunities 
to shirk a goodly per cent, of their proper 
public burdens, and lay them on an over -taxed 
people, as they have done in this case? Is the 
People's Party ready to sanction the triple 
alliance? If not, as Emerson says, they 
should speak in '96 what they think in '96. 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORP - RATION. 107 

VS. THE SENATE ORDERS AN INVESTIGATION. 

During the first week of the following ses- 
sion of the Legislature (Jan. 1895) the Senate, 
on motion of Senator Taylor, ordered an in- 
vestigation, and I appointed a committee for 
the purpose. That was the situation when- 
the Republican State Officers were inaugu- 
rated and the Populists relieved at the open- 
ing of the second week of the session; and I 
came home, expecting to be called back to' 
testify before the committee. 

14. A TRIPEE.ALLIANCE ANNULS THE ORDER". 

The committee could do nothing without an 
appropriation. The session was nearly over 
before the call was made. Appropriation bills 
were crowding. An item for the neces- 
sary funds was put into the miscellaneous 
appropriation bill— House No 1031 — by a 
Senate amendment, but King Party haunted 
the corridors. His spectre friend was a power 
in the lobby. The Republican side of the 
Legislature was ready to support anything 
their powerful ally required. Party interest 
among Populists was chaperoned by the same 
spectre that seconded his motion for the ad- 
journment of the Board of Assessors. They 
sat side by side in committee meetings. They 
went hand in hand to the conferences over 
appropriation bills, and when one said at one 
of these meetings, "Let that item for an 
appropriation to investigate the railroad 
assessments be stricken out,*' the other said, 
"so mote it be," and it teas so. The report 
was then accepted by the Senate. 

It was a great mistake which the friends of 
good government now see and regret, and the 
Santa Fe crowd and their allies chuckle over. 



108 CUTTING THE GORDIA.N KNOT. 



The same questions as before naturally 
recur to every friend of reform and of good 
government. How much of a foothold has 
this powerful corporation got among Populist 
leaders or Populist officials, that, with the 
aid of King Party, it can in so clandestine a 
way, accomplish its purpose. 

People may well inquire how it happened 
that the virtuous purpose of the Senate, ex- 
pressed in the resolution of the first week of 
the session, was undermined and swamped 
before the close. Was it the enervating in- 
fluence of a winter in Topeka that annulled 
the purpose to investigate, or was it the 
insiduous work of the third house? 

15. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 

A few days after the adjournment, the ex- 
auditor and secretary of the Populist Board 
issued a Manifesto in which he attempted to 
show that even after the changes from the 
assessment of '93, the Santa Fe was still 
overtaxed. 

His successor, the present auditor, at once 
wrote me that the Santa Fe company would 
use Mr. Prather's statement in a fight for a 
further reduction, and asked me to let him 
know if there was anything in Mr. Prather's 
report. I give his letter and my reply in 
full, except a few lines of mine that would be 
a repetition. 

State of Kansas, Executive Department, 1 
Office of State Auditor, 

Topeka, Kan , March 13, 1895 J 
Col Percy DaniflH, 
Girard, Knnsis. 
My Dear Sir and Friend:— I herewith enclose 
you an article that appears in the Kansas City Times 
Sunday morning, March 17th, which I think shows 
up false on its face, and is intended to be misleading. 
I also notice that the Santa Fe System will use 
Prather's statement in a fight for a still further re- 
duction before the new State Board of Railroad As- 
sessors. I have no desire whatever to show any 



THK GRIP «F \ GREAT CORPORATION. 109* 



partiality as far as I am concerned towards any of 
the railroads in the state, but think that all should; 
bear their equal proportion of taxation. 

Now I find that the total mileage of the Santa Fe 
in the state is 2355.22. This includes main line and 
branches I also find that the assessed valuation of 
said property for 1394 was $2 ), 470,033. This, divided 
by the number of miles, 2,855. would give an average 
assessed value per mile of i*;7,169.H0. I also find that 
the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis in 1894 had a 
mileage of 256 miles (or 255.98) assessed at $2,797,305. 
This includes main line and branches of said Mem- 
phis road. This would show an average assessment 
per mile of $10,927. I only use these two for an illus- 
tration. You know as well as I that the Southern 
Kansas Division known as the Pittsburg and Girard 
Division, is certainly a better paying branch than 
the Cherry vale Division of the Memphis road, and 
you can see that the Memphis road averaged over 
§3,000 a mile more than the Santa Fe. Now why 
Mr. Prather should make this report is more than I 
can understand. There may be things pert lining to 
this railroad assessments that I do not know, and I 
Avrite kindly asking you to let me know if there is 
anything in this published report of Mr. Prather's. 
Very Truly Yours, 

Geo. E. Cole. 



Girard, Kansas, March 27th, 1895. 
lh, tl . Gen. !■:. Cole, 

State Auditor, 

Topeka, Kanm*. 

Dear Sir:— Yours of the 18th was duly received - 
also the paper with table made by your predecessor,, 
from figures found in the Auditor's report of '94. I 
had noticed the table and the comments thereon 
before. 

You say you find the average assessment per mile 
of the Santa Fe is 87,170, and of the Menmhis line it 
is §10,927. You mean rather that you find figures 
which indicate that. That part of your letter I will 
leave till after I touch on the subject of railroad val- 
uation generally. 

The value of railroad property depends on many- 
factors, beginning with the road-bed, its condition, 
and quality, and ending with the most important 
item, net earning capacity. This is dependent upom 
the business it does,— the competition it meets and 
the per cent, of traffic receipts required to meet 
operating expenses. 

It would be as unfair to put the same acreage value 
upon all Kansas farms, as mileage value upon all her 
railroads Nor is the oalue of a railroad dependent 
upon the amount of fraud the management has been 
able to perpetrate on "innocent purchasers" or 
duped associates. These may effect the value of the 
stock and so called securities (which occasionally 
become insecurities,) but not of the road itself. 



110 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 



The purpose of the Board in '93 was to combine 
tne value of the fixed plaut and its appurtenances, 
and the average business in fixing values. 

The train mileage per mile of track, — the receipts 
and operating expenses per train- mile, — the amount 
of rolling stock used, — and the proportion of siding 
to main track, are a comparative index of the latter, 
and yet not positive. The necessity for a large per 
cent, of tide track for instance, depends not only on 
the volume of business, but the leading kind. The 
value of sidings and rolling stock too, swell the total 
value per mile 

Some roads have nearly as much side track as 
main, like the Joplin, the K. C, T & W. and some of 
the terminal lines; while many, including the im- 
mense C. K. & W. system of the Santa Fe Co. have 
less than 10 per cent. The G. & P. has a much 
smaller per cent, than the Cherry vale division of the 
Memphis Co. of which you wrote. The following- 
gives the per cent, of oaim of sidings and rolling stock 
to main, on several lines: 

Mo. Pac, Council Groves division 10 per cent. 

Mo. Pac, Ossawatomie division 13 per cent. 

Mo. Pac, Atchison section 30 per cent. 

A. T & S F., C. K. & W. division 15 per cent. 

A T & S F., Girard and Pittsburg 
division 41 per cent. 

A T & S. F., main line 56 per cent. 

A T. & S. F., Joplin division 75 per cent. 

Memph s, main line 53 per cent. 

Memphis, B S. division 65 per cent. 

C, R. I. & P.. whole Kansas system. ..20 per cent. 

I". Pacific, Kansas division 17 per cent. 

M. K. & T., main line 27 per cent. 

(These figures are from the report of '93 as the 
assessment of '94 which I helped to make has never 
heen printed. The report which appears in the 
auditor's report showing about $2,000,000 reduction 
in the aggregate, and -SI, 700, 000 in the Santa Felines, 
was made after the Board adjourned sine die, June 
116th, and is something I know nothing about. ) 

These figures on many roads are something of a 
criterion in estimating the comparative value of 
main track, right of way and franchise; but on roads 
that apportion their whole rolling stock to their 
whole system, like the Union Pacific that had 8792.52 
per mile, and the Memphis with 83,335, they are not: 
as there the main track with a high valuation, is 
<?oupled with a rolling stock value below what belongs 
to it, and the low rate main is coupled with an 
excessive value of rolling stock. 

An equitable assessed value must necessarily be. a 
compromise between cost and earning capacity. 
Some branch lines in Kansas are operated at a loss. 
The value of these, figured on earning capacitv 
would be a minus quantity; but there is an intrinsic 
value in their rails, right of way, depots and grades, 
and they help to gather a current of commerce for 
.the main lines. Others like the U. P. whose state- 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1 1 t 

ment in the '93 report of the R. R. Commissioners, 
shows that their operating expenses are but 57 per 
cent, of their traffic earnings; and the Santa Fe with 
a ratio of operating expenses to traffic earnings of 
63V per cent., which do an immense business and 
have a great earning capacity should not — ignoring 
their cost — be taxed solely en their earning capacity. 
On page 555 of the last commissioner's report — first 
column — you will find a condensed list of figures from 
the returns of the companies, giving the proportion 
of operating expenses to traffic earnings on the 
different systems. And on page 499 you can find the 
stock and bonds per mile, both on the whole system 
and also in Kansas. The figures on page 555, while 
useful in this connection, would be very valuable if 
equally reliable, and if they were made under a 
specific system that required uniformity ; but some- 
times the managers want to deceive the stockholders 
or aid speculating friends (or themselves i, and many 
of them habitually intend to deceive the public for 
the purpose of evading public burdens and for pre • 
venting the public from knowing how well they are 
fulfilling their mission as common carriers. These 
questions you will find discussed in the Assessor's 
Report for '93 with quotations from leading author- 
ities. How far these figures on traffic operations 
can be relied on, you should be able to form some 
idea. 

As a sample, the Frisco, with a Kansas mileage of 
435, and a total of 1328, reports for whole line, the 
per cent, of expenses to earnings 60.83; but of the 
Kansas part 91.99. And the Atchison, with 4,582 
miles, of which 2,487 are in Kansas, reports the per 
cent, of net profits from operation in Kansas, greater 
than on the whole system; the per cent, of expenses 
being, for the system 63.53: and for the Kansas 
mileage 63.21; making the pnfita from operation 
$36.47 on the whole system and .$36.79 on the Kansas 
mileage, of every $ 10*0.00 received from traffic The 
Board in '93 went back of these returns and got in- 
formation from other and independent sources; and 
I spent several weeks that year outside of the time 
occupied in inspection and the sessions, in examining 
authorities, in comparing reports, and in figuring 
percentages. I also worked nearly a month last 
year before the Board met, reviewing the work 
bf '93, and satisfied myself that in the distribution of 
public burdens among the railroad corporations, 
justice required no material change 

In reference to the comparison you make between 
the average value per mile of the Santa Fe lines, 
and those of the Memphis Co., the former has a 
number of non-productive branches, that seem to 
have been started with the idea that it was necessary 
to keep laying steel,— to go somewhere,— which 
habit was never developed or allowed to sprout in 
the Memphis Co. The latter are the fairest in their 
reports, and generally one of the best managed com- 
panies in the state; conservative, steady and level 
headed 365 days in the year. 



112 CUTTING THE GOliOIAN KNOT. 



Another thing that impairs your comparison of 
mileage values: you evidently use the figures in the 
printed report which are not those of the original 
assessment, the only one I know anything about. 

As I said before, the assessment which I helped to 
make has never, to my knowledge, been printed. 
When or by whom these valuations were made 
which appears in the Auditor's report, is something 
I have not learned. 

The great reduction which this report shows from 
the original assessment of '9-1 on the Santa Fe lines, 
makes, as your comparison leads you to conclude, 
the Memphis lines too high or the Santa Fe too low. 
I am satisfied that the latter is the fact, and that the 
valuation of the Santa Fe lines should be put back 
to what they were when the old Board adjourned 
sine die — June 16th, 1894. 

When the Board of that year first met, they decid- 
ed to make no changes in valuation that would 
materially alter the aggregate assessments from that 
of '93. Some changes were made in main track, but 
the aggregate valuation on this item would vary 
from that of '93 less than one -tenth of one per cent, 
and my recollection is that this change was an in- 
crease. Telegraphs were reduced, and I presume 
the figures in the report showing 8101,500 reduction, 
are correct. Pullman cars were raised 124 per cent, 
making 816,500. Other rolling stock was assessed at 
the same rate as the previous year but some of the 
companies returned very much less than in '93 and 
this fact doubtless accounts for the reduction of 
8362,059 in the report. Tools, materials and cash show 
a reduction of «95,920 from the same reason, but you 
will notice that the Memphis Co., reported no re- 
duction of tools, materials and cash: and they also 
reported an increase of rolling stock. 

The only legitimate reduction in the report of '94 
from the valuation of '93 that I can account for 
(presuming these to be correctly figured) are as 
follows: 

Rolling Stock 8362,059 

Telegraph 101,486 

Tools, etc 95,920 

Total 8559,465 

The differences between the valuation of '93 and 
that which appears in the Auditor's report as that 
of '94 (and which appears to have superseded the 
original assessment) are as follows: 

REDUCTIONS. 

Main Track 81,300,001 

Side Track 29,455 

Buildings 93,943 

Rolling Stock 362,0*9 

Tools, Materials & Cash 95-, 920 • 

Telegraph 101,486 

Total..... $1,982,867 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1 1 3" 



INCREASE. 

Pullman cars $ 16,515 

Net reported reductions 1,966,352 

Deducting from the total reductions of 1,982,867 

The legitimate reduction of 559,465 

Leaves unacounted for $1,423,402 

The Santa Fe property, Frisco included, was as- 
sessed in '93 at $24,034,689 

And the Auditor's report says it Avas 

valued in '94 at 22,342,162 

Showing a shrinkage of 1,692,527 

Of this shrinkage in round numbers of 1,692,500 

There is accounted for in the rolling stock, 
telegraph, tools, materials and cash 
reductions the sum of 2S0,10O 

Leaving unaccounted for $1,412,400 

An amount bearing a striking similarity to the ag- 
gregate unaccounted for shrinkage of all companies. 
If you should add this sum to the amount you 
divide by the Santa Fe mileage to get the average 
value, you will have what the Board of Railroad As- 
sessors valued them at, at the time of the nine die 
adjournment last June, and the Memphis Co. prop- 
erty is I think reported a little too high. The 
original assessment of that line did not carry the 
s9000 per mile valuation to Paola (see page 406 of 
the report) but I have not gone over their valuation, 
,as reported, carefully. 

No sir! the purported assessment given in the 
Auditor's report for '94 is not a fair distribution of 
public burdens. It is not only unfair to the Memphis 
Co., but to all other companies except the Santa Fe. 
Our Board made several changes in the Santa Fe 
main track schedules at its regular sessions,— raising 
four lines, beginning with the main line which we 
raised 6500 a mile west of Great Bend and lowering 
nine. This other document recognizes the original 
action of the Board in one of the four pieces we 
raised, (the Girard and Pittsburg,) and reduces nine- 
teen. As the record of proceedings of the Board 
contains no minutes of, or reference to, any subse- 
quent meeting, no legitimate changes could have 
been made. Nor is the record of proceedings con- 
sistent with itself as printed; as for instance on page 
407 the minutes say the C. K and W. division "be 
assessed the same as last year " Turning to page 
198 vou find it was valued "last year" ('93) on main 
track at 84,341,799 with Valuations ranging from 8 I 
to $6500 per mile Turning to schedule No 2 of '94 - 
page 429) vou And it all rated at S4000 a mile making 
a reduction of over 8595,000. Turning again to page 
407 you find immediately under where it says the C. 
K & W. be assessed the same as last year, it specifies 
several pieces of this same division, rating them dif- 
ferent from that of '93 and some of them different 
also from what was carried into the table. 



114 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 

I have answered your letter in the spirit in which 
I think it was written, believing it to be the right of 
a public officer or board to request such information 
and suggestions from their predecessors — whether 
they be Greek, or Jew or Roman — as will simplify 
their work or help them to avoid error, and the duty 
of the latter to furnish it.! Public office still remains a 
public trust, with those whose first incentive is the 
public weal. 

In closing this long discussion of the questions you 
ask, I hereby protest as an ex-state officer and 
Chairman of the Board of Railroad Assessors against 
the use by the new Board, of what- appears in the 
Auditor's Report as the valuations of the Santa Fe 
company's property, for 1894, as being any guide for 
their estimate or basis for their conclusions. If you 
lean on them you lean on a "broken reed," and I 
hope the new Board, ignoring every interest but the 
demands of justice and their duty to the whole 
people whose officers they are, will study this ques- 
tion sufficiently to see that instead of being relatively 
too high (if this reconstructed table of values is to 
be honored and legitamized as an assessment) as 
claimed by Mr. Prather in the statement you sent, 
this great change in the Santa Fe valuations not only 
does injustice to the other companies, but perpetu- 
ates a great wrong on the whole people of the state. 
Yours truly, 

Percy Daniels, 
Ex-Lieut. Governor. 

To my letter Air. Cole replied on April 6th, 
saying: 

"On my arrival at the office to-day, after viewing 
the U. P. R. R. I find your favor of Mar. 27th. I 
have read the same over carefully, and wish to say 
that I most sincerely thank you for the ideas and 
pointers you give me in this communication. For 
my part I am anxious to equalize the assessment of 
all classes of property." 

1(3. ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER. 

At that time Mr. Cole considered the '94 
valuations as published showed favoritism to 
the Santa Fe company, and when the Board 
met the next month they came with their 
demand for a further reduction. My letter in 
reply to Mr. Cole supported his conclusions 
that that company was undertaxed; but when 
they asked for another reduction, backed by the 
ex-auditor's manifesto, does anyone suppose 
they were refused by their friends at the 



THE G1UP OF A GREAT GOR*»OR\TION 1 L5 

capitol ? Their demands were granted to the 
amount of over 1650,000 on the Santa Fe and 
the Frisco, making a reduction of over 
$2,000,0(10 in two years. 

17. SPIKED GUNS. 

And what did the Populist papers have to 
say over this reduction for the Santa Fe. and 
raising the assessment on other roads nearly 
enough to cover it? Ordinarily they would 
have opened with chain shot on the indomit- 
able and yet plastic friends of this great 
corporation. Their silence was not from any 
approbation of the wrong; but they have a 
skeleton locked in their closet. It was a 
mistaken judgment that forced them to lock 
it in, but they were muzzled. If they opened 
on these "Redeemers'" the counter fire might 
disturb their skeleton, and so they kept still. 

The rank and file of Populism do not believe 
in such situations. They know if their officials 
followed their instructions such a situation 
could not exist. They would, if the facts 
were clearly seen, repudiate with a mighty 
shout the work of the cabal that has given the 
Santa Fe company such great favors, and 
while muzzling their press, has silenced the 
defenders of Republican corruption. Their 
workers are certainly as much entitled to 
understand the merits and demerits of the 
situation over this question as the Republican 
workers; and the party is entitled to an 
opportunity to say whether it approves or 
condemns the work of the officers who are 
responsible for it, whether it was by accident 
or design; but as said before they cannot cor- 
rectly analyze and label what they but dimly 
see. 



116 CUTTING THE GORDLAN KNOT. 

This review of these assessments is to enable 
the people to understand the favoritism which 
the' Santa Fe company now enjoys and to 
assist them to reach their own conclusions as 
to the methods by which it has been accom- 
plished, and decide for themselves how fully 
they meet their approbation. 

18. A GUARDED WOOD PILE. 

The agents and attorneys of the Santa Fe 
company have been sharp enough to run a 
nigger into the Populist end of the state wood 
pile (to use a slang jmrase) and set a Populist 
guard to keep him there. The Republicans 
could have let him out, but they knew their 
friend, the company, wanted to run a bigger 
nigger in their end of the wood pile to reward 
them for favors and support, and they knew 
no better way to aid them than to keep the 
first one where he was — and maintain the 
status quo. So they helped the Populist 
guard, while the company's agents were 
inducing the new Board to grant them greater 
favors than they were given by the changes 
made in the report of '94 after the Populist 
Board adjourned and before it was turned 
over to the state printer. 

When the Board of '95 issued their report 
it was seen that they had not only endorsed 
the altered valuations of '94, but they had 
granted the Santa Fe company the favor of 
more than $600,000, further reductions; and 
the bigger nigger crawled into the Republican 
end of the wood pile. Now they watch each 
other while the Republican King Party and 
Santa Fe company enjoy the fruits of 
their strategy, and the people '-pay the 
freight.'' Do the people enjoy it? 



the grip of a great corporation. 117 

19. watchman! what of the night? 

Because the laws governing the rise and 
progress and decay of nations are inexorable: 
Because it seems certain that on the Popu- 
list party rests the last hope of the Republic: 
Because, to successfully work out its mis- 
sion, it must uphold its righteous purpose and 
maintain its youthful vigor: 

Because to do this, it must retain public 
confidence by enforcing, among its honored 
servants, the maxim that, with public officials, 
king party, who has come to be as much of a 
despot as his rival in strength and his col- 
league in corruption — the great corporations, 
must always hold a subordinate place: 

Because, condoning such favoritism as this 
chapter discusses will establish with us a 
precedent, that has long been the rule with our 
opponents, of yeilding without resistance to 
the grip of a great corporation: 

Because if ire establish such a precedent, ire 
will shake the faith of the people in the sin- 
cerity of our motives and cast t<> the winds tin 
opportunity that ties in our path, 
From Justice's honored castle, 
To hurl the wild Pretender 
And install our old Defender. 

For these reasons I have invaded the 
records of official correspondence and mixed 
therewith some facts from personal memoran- 
da, that I might, while showing the greater 
servility of our wily opponents to a great 
Kansas representative of corporate power 
and greed, lay a warning torpedo on the Pop- 
ulist track with a friendly hand. And I trust, 
if censured therefor by my party associates, 
that they may sometime realize that "I have 
been cruel only to be kind." 






BOOKS-^ 



e). 



BY 



Ex-Lieutenant Governor Percy Daniels, 



EOF - KANSAS. = 



The Free Coinage of American Labor 
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A Sunflower Tangle — An address to the 
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ADDRESS, 

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